DOI article:
Dixon, Marion Hepworth: The runaway
DOI Page / Citation link:https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.25499#0121
By Marion Hepworth-Dixon 117
What . . . what was this? The key did not turn. Like lightning
the terrible thought seized her. The lock had been tampered with.
Good God ! what she most feared, then, was true ! Sleeping on
the same floor, her son had access to the room at all times. No
one in the house would bar his entrance at any hour of the day
when she was away at her work, and it was while she had been
away at her work in distant parts of London that the mischief
had certainly been wrought. The desk was broken open ; her
watch, the half-sovereign she had hidden in the little wash-leather
case which held it, the locket containing the coloured portrait of
her husband, her mother-in-law’s old-fashioned Swedish ring, the
half-dozen krone and two-krone pieces, all were gone !
No one but her son could have taken the things, for no one
but her son knew where she hid the key of her room when she
locked it up on going out for the day. It was in an inaccessible
chink in the rotten boards of the passage which flanked her door,
and was covered not only by a loose piece of the woodwork but
by the mat she had placed there some years later to keep out the
draughts of an exceptionally bitter winter. The boy, when a
little fellow, had always insisted on hiding the key for her
whenever they had to leave the house, and found it again with
delighted chucklings on their return. Yes, certainly her son
knew-
The thought almost choked her. The secret of the missing
brooch, the missing sovereign, his long absence, all was made
clear. She knew now that while he had money he would not
work. Had he not run away from two excellent situations, one
after another, when he was little more than eighteen ? Had he
not been recovered from some disreputable den the year after,
when she was three weeks searching the town ? Yes. . . . On
each occasion, she recollected, in looking back, she had missed
money
What . . . what was this? The key did not turn. Like lightning
the terrible thought seized her. The lock had been tampered with.
Good God ! what she most feared, then, was true ! Sleeping on
the same floor, her son had access to the room at all times. No
one in the house would bar his entrance at any hour of the day
when she was away at her work, and it was while she had been
away at her work in distant parts of London that the mischief
had certainly been wrought. The desk was broken open ; her
watch, the half-sovereign she had hidden in the little wash-leather
case which held it, the locket containing the coloured portrait of
her husband, her mother-in-law’s old-fashioned Swedish ring, the
half-dozen krone and two-krone pieces, all were gone !
No one but her son could have taken the things, for no one
but her son knew where she hid the key of her room when she
locked it up on going out for the day. It was in an inaccessible
chink in the rotten boards of the passage which flanked her door,
and was covered not only by a loose piece of the woodwork but
by the mat she had placed there some years later to keep out the
draughts of an exceptionally bitter winter. The boy, when a
little fellow, had always insisted on hiding the key for her
whenever they had to leave the house, and found it again with
delighted chucklings on their return. Yes, certainly her son
knew-
The thought almost choked her. The secret of the missing
brooch, the missing sovereign, his long absence, all was made
clear. She knew now that while he had money he would not
work. Had he not run away from two excellent situations, one
after another, when he was little more than eighteen ? Had he
not been recovered from some disreputable den the year after,
when she was three weeks searching the town ? Yes. . . . On
each occasion, she recollected, in looking back, she had missed
money