She hesitated.

“Oh, you might as well say it—­before some one else does,” put in Jack.  “It looks mighty suspicious, Cora.”

There was a vindictive air about him.  He seemed to challenge an accusation against his sister.

“I’m sure there was no need to say that,” spoke Walter.  “It may be a mere—­er—­”

“Coincidence,” finished Cora.

“A queer coincidence,” quoth Jack.  “Incidentally, some one got the money, all right.  We must hurry home and tell Ed.”

“I wonder what he’ll think?” asked Cora.

“What can he think?” demanded her brother.  “Only that some one found or stole his wallet and threw the empty pocketbook into your tool-box.”

“And I found it,” added Walter.  “Which might mean—­”

He, too, hesitated.

“Well, what?” asked Jack.

“That I put it there, and only pretended to find it,” finished Walter with a laugh.

“Nonsense!” exclaimed Cora.  “But come, let’s hurry back to Chelton.  I want to be the first to tell Ed.”

“Do you feel all right?” asked Jack anxiously.

“Oh, yes.  Very well.  I never fainted before, that I remember.”

“Yes, you did.  Once when you burned your hand on the stove,” corrected Jack.

“Oh, that was a good while ago.”

There was a period of silence.

“Well, as long as I started to pump up the tire I suppose I may as well finish,” remarked Walter, as he took out the jack and raised the wheel.

It was rather a quiet company of young people who made their way back to Chelton in the two autos a little later.  The gay members of the mandolin club had little to say, and when they did attempt a pleasantry the laughter was soon over.  Every once in a while some one would refer to the discovery of the empty wallet.

“The next thing to find,” remarked jack, with a trace of bitterness in his tones, “is the person with the cash and the bonds.”

“Maybe they’re in—­the tool—­box of your car,” said Diddick jestingly.  “It may run in the family—­”

Then he was conscious that he had made rather a bad “break,” and he subsided, while every one tried to talk at once to cover it up.  Jack laughed uneasily, and Cora seemed annoyed.

One thought was running through the mind of both Cora and her brother.  Who could it have been who tried to injure her in this way by throwing suspicion on her, and what could have been their motive?

She tried to reason certain things out.  She went over in detail, while Walter was driving her car for her, every incident that she could remember in connection with the collision and the subsequent loss of the money.

She speculated on the actions of every one.  Mary’s desire to leave the car at the post-office and not go back to her shop was odd, Cora thought, though her employer had given Mary permission to go for a ride with such well-paying customers as the Kimballs and the Robinson twins.  Next Cora tried to analyze Sid’s actions, also those of Ida, and she even found herself wondering at Sid’s seeming intimacy with Lem Gildy.  But it all came to nothing.  There was still that unanswered question:  “Who took the money from the wallet?”