He know I have zem, and he try to
entrap me. But I am too--what you call foxy, for him! I slip
through his fingernails. Ze papairs--in my valise--Oh, where is it?
I--when I faint--I have it at my feet--"
"It was on the porch!" exclaimed Mrs. Kimball. "I forgot all about
it in the excitement. It was full of lace--Oh, if some one has taken
it!"
"And my papairs--zat could free my father!" cried the girl.
A shout came from the front of the house.
"That's Walter's voice!" exclaimed Cora, starting up.
"Here, drop that satchel!" came the call.
The girls swept to the window in time to see a small man running down
the drive, closely pursued by Walter Pennington. And, as the man
fled, he dropped a valise from which trailed a length of lace. The
girl, Inez, caught a reflection of the scene in a mirror of the
bedroom.
"Zat is him--ze mysterious man!" she cried.
"Oh, if he has taken my papairs!" and she seemed about to leap from
the bed.
CHAPTER VII
NEW PLANS
"You mustn't do that!" cried Cora. "Hold her, girls!"
"But ze man--my papairs!" fairly screamed the Spanish visitor.
"He has nothing--Walter is after him--he doesn't seem to have taken
anything," said Belle, soothingly, as Mrs. Kimball pressed back on
the pillow the frail form of the eager girl. Inez struggled for a
moment, and then lay quiet.
But she murmured, over and over again:
"Oh, if he has--if he has--my father--he may never see ze outside of
ze prison again!"
"We will help you," said Cora's mother, softly.
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