Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/274

 "It has come up and we can't rid ourselves of it. Those papers were the cause of Mr. Wing's death."

"Those papers!" she repeated, with open lips, which scarcely moved as she spoke. "Those papers! But I hid them; no one knew where they were. Theodore did not even know of their existence."

"You hid them!" exclaimed Trafford, thunder-*struck at the statement. "They were stolen, I understand. How could you hide them?"

"Yes," she said, like a bewildered child, admitting a fault; "they were stolen. I stole them."

It was Trafford's turn to sit dazed beyond the power of clear thought. She had stolen the papers to which her husband had given long months of work and thought, and on which he had hoped to build a reputation that should overpass the bounds of the State and outlive his years. She was the thief; and if report said truly, that theft had hastened his death and added bitterness to his last days!

"You can't mean this, Mrs. Parlin," he said gently. "I refer to the papers that were stolen from your husband's desk some five years before he died;