"The bad shilling has saved you a good penny stamp," replied George. "I seemed to have been away quite long enough and, as my lodgings were jolly dull, I decided to accept Aunt Sophy's invitation to live in my own house again. I ought never to have gone, for as soon as I was out of the house--what do you think the policeman has been telling me?"

"About the robbery."

"How that miserable Robert stole my things, while Bessie kept Kezia in the kitchen."

"That's right, miss. I guessed how it was at once, but couldn't say anything till I'd made sure. I was just coming to tell you when I met Mr. Drake," said the new sergeant, stroking his moustache complacently.

"It doesn't pay to be a rascal here," said George. "This policeman has caught a farmer burning down his house, and Robert making off with my property, within the last few days. I hope it won't be long before he gets a murder. I don't mind telling him to his face that he deserves a double murder and suicide."

The constable expressed his grat.i.tude for this unsolicited testimonial, and added, "Mr. Drake thinks, miss, I'd better not go any further in the matter, as there seems to be a sort of doubt as to who owns the furniture."

"There is no doubt whatever. I own the things, and I'll see about getting them back without troubling you," said George.

"Right, sir!" Then the policeman bade them good evening and went his way.

Immediately they were alone, George burst out excitedly, "Nellie, there's another girl!"

"In your case? Well, n.o.body's jealous," she replied.

"A prettier one than ever, but very young, in short skirts, with her hair down, and her name's Teenie," he continued, without even hearing her comment.

"I think you've come back perfectly crazy," observed Nellie.

"If you don't believe me, you can just go to Black Anchor and find out for yourself."

"Oh, you mean another girl there!" she exclaimed, flushing angrily, and adding, "I don't want to hear any more--but how do you know?"

"She travelled in the same carriage with me, and I thought what a dear--I mean pa.s.sable little thing she was. Directly the train stopped I saw Sidney, and he called out, 'Here I am, Teenie darling!' And the little girl fairly shouted, 'Oh, Sidney dear, how brown you are!' Then she jumped out, and they kissed and hugged. I never saw anything more disgraceful in my life. I sat back in the carriage so that Sidney shouldn't see me. I suppose they have driven through the village by this time, unless they have the decency to wait until it's dark."

"Where's your luggage?" asked Nellie rather sharply, but determined to change the subject.

"First the painted lady, then Dolly, now Teenie! Thirty, then twenty, and now fourteen! The next will be twelve, and after that they'll be coming in perambulators. My word, young Sidney is a patriarch!"

"Hold your tongue," cried Nellie, more sharply than she had ever spoken in her life.

"I'm sorry, but my feelings ran away with me--she was such a pretty youngster--but of course it's fearfully sad. I had to walk from the station, as I couldn't get a conveyance: the carrier can fetch my box.

What's the news? Has Percy been?"

"He came, saw me, and fled," replied the girl more amiably.

"I knew he was a coward, but I didn't suppose you could frighten any one."

"He wanted Miss Sophy to buy the furniture. I told him it was hers already. He bl.u.s.tered and threatened; I stood like a tor. He was so rude that I lost my temper; and when I am angry I can frighten anyone.

He yielded and ran. The news," continued Nellie, "is that we are going to run too."

"For a change of air. I'll come with you."

"A permanent change. We are going back to Drivelford. The house is taken, and the problem before me is how to move the furniture."

"So you wrote asking me to come back and do the dirty work?"

"If you like to put it that way."

"Aunt Sophy has no right to leave without giving notice. She is my tenant for life. If she breaks her contract I shall claim the furniture--it is mine really, as Percy didn't give me a fair price, and now he's gone to Tasmania he can't interfere. I have always regarded the furniture as belonging to me in spite of Percy's interference. Of course, when I say to me, I mean to us."

"Don't worry," she said. "Mr. Taverner has signed a deed of gift making over everything in the house to Miss Sophy; and, as she has signed a will in my favour, the furniture should come to me eventually--if Kezia and the Mudges don't grab it all."

"So you made Percy give my furniture to Aunt Sophy. Percy, who has never given away anything in his life except a bad cigar!"

"Marriage has improved him."

"He wasn't married when he came here."

"He was on the brink. I persuaded him that, as Miss Sophy had paid for the things, she ought to have them."

"That argument would simply slide off his back. You said he threatened you, and, from what I know of him, it's fairly certain that he swore at you. Is it likely he would threaten one moment, and give way the next?

His young woman may have changed his vile nature--I hope she has--but you can't reform the stripes off a zebra. You found out something about him--you made him confess how he got hold of that money he wrote telling us about, and why he was clearing out of the country. He has defrauded the Yard estate, and Hunter helped him. The next thing we shall hear is that Hunter has gone to study the business habits and professional morals of the Esquimaux. Out with it, Nellie, or I shall suffer from a horrible suspicion that Percy has squared you."

"I have spoken nothing but the truth, and you won't squeeze anything more out of me," she said.

"When a fellow stays in lodgings," said George, "he must either read novels or go mad. I have been reading a quant.i.ty of novels, and they convinced me that women are deceitful beings."

"They have to protect themselves against the perfidy of men," cried Nellie.

"Remember poor innocent Adam! He was all right as long as he was engaged to Eve; but what happened when he married her?"

"It's a shame that story was ever invented."

"He wouldn't have eaten the apples; peaches and bananas were good enough for him," George continued.

"But the serpent started it, and the serpent was the devil in disguise, and the devil is a fallen angel, and all angels, as you told me once, are gentlemen. So the male s.e.x is the most deceitful after all."

"Why can't you stick to the subject?" said George sourly.

"Certainly," laughed Nellie. "This business about the furniture must be settled finally one way or the other. Are the Mudges to have anything, and, if not, how are they to be prevented from taking just what they want?"

"Robert and Bessie are not to take a stick from the house, or a stone from the garden; and they must give back the things they have stolen,"

replied George.

"Are those sc.r.a.ps of paper worth anything at all?" she demanded.

"They are as useless as agreements between nations."

"Then why don't you tell Kezia?"

"Because the law is so slippery."

"That means you are not certain."