Dialstone Lane, Part 4. William Wymark Jacobs

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      "Joseph never said a word about it," said Mr. Tredgold, with an air of great frankness. "He merely said that you were in the garden, and, not being able to find you, I thought that he was mistaken."

      "Did you know that I was up in the crow's-nest?" repeated Miss Drewitt, with ominous persistency.

      "A—a sort of idea that you might be there did occur to me after a time," admitted the other.

      "Did you know that I was there?"

      Mr. Tredgold gazed at her in feeble indignation, but the uselessness of denial made truth easier. "Yes," he said, slowly.

      "Thank you," said the girl, scornfully. "You thought that I shouldn't like to be caught up there, and that it would be an amusing and gentlemanly thing to do to keep me a prisoner. I quite understand. My estimate of you has turned out to be correct."

      "It was quite an accident," urged Mr. Tredgold, humbly. "I've had a very worrying day seeing them off at Biddlecombe, and when I heard you up in the nest I succumbed to sudden temptation. If I had stopped to think—if I had had the faintest idea that you would catechise me in the way you have done—I shouldn't have dreamt of doing such a thing."

      Miss Drewitt, who was standing with her hand on the latch of the door leading upstairs, as a hint that the interview was at an end, could not restrain her indignation.

      "Your father and his friends have gone off to secure my uncle's treasure, and you come straight on here," she cried, hotly. "Do you think that there is no end to his good-nature?"

      "Treasure?" said the other, with a laugh. "Why, that idea was knocked on the head when the map was burnt. Even Chalk wouldn't go on a roving commission to dig over all the islands in the South Pacific."

      "I don't see anything to laugh at," said the girl; "my uncle fully intended to burn it. He was terribly upset when he found that it had disappeared."

      "Disappeared?" cried Mr. Tredgold, in accents of unmistakable amazement. "Why, wasn't it burnt after all? The captain said it was."

      "He was going to burn it," repeated the girl, watching him; "but somebody took it from the bureau."

      "Took it? When?" inquired the other, as the business of the yachting cruise began to appear before him in its true colours.

      "The afternoon you were here waiting for him," said Miss Drewitt.

      "Afternoon?" repeated Mr. Tredgold, blankly. "The afternoon I was–" He drew himself up and eyed her angrily. "Do you mean to say that you think I took the thing?"

      "It doesn't matter what I think," said the girl. "I suppose you won't deny that your friends have got it?"

      "Yes; but you said that it was the afternoon I was here," persisted the other.

      Miss Drewitt eyed him indignantly. The conscience-stricken culprit of a few minutes before had disappeared, leaving in his stead an arrogant young man, demanding explanations in a voice of almost unbecoming loudness.

      "You are shouting at me," she said, stiffly.

      Mr. Tredgold apologised, but returned to the charge. "I answered your question a little while ago," he said, in more moderate tones; "now, please, answer mine. Do you think that I took the map?"

      "I am not to be commanded to speak by you," said Miss Drewitt, standing very erect.

      "Fair-play is a jewel," said the other. "Question for question. Do you?"

      Miss Drewitt looked at him and hesitated. "No," she said, at last, with obvious reluctance.

      Mr. Tredgold's countenance cleared and his eyes softened.

      "I suppose you admit that your father has got it?" said the girl, noting these signs with some disapproval. "How did he get it?"

      Mr. Tredgold shook his head. "If those three overgrown babes find that treasure," he said, impressively, "I'll doom myself to perpetual bachelorhood."

      "I answered your question just now," said the girl, very quietly, "because I wanted to ask you one. Do you believe my uncle's story about the buried treasure?"

      Mr. Tredgold eyed her uneasily. "I never attached much importance to it," he replied. "It seemed rather romantic."

      "Do you believe it?"

      "No," said the other, doggedly.

      The girl drew a long breath and favoured him with a look in which triumph and anger were strangely mingled.

      "I wonder you can visit him after thinking him capable of such a falsehood," she said, at last. "You certainly won't be able to after I have told him."

      "I told you in confidence," was the reply. "I have regarded it all along as a story told to amuse Chalk; that is all. I shall be very sorry if you say anything that might cause unpleasantness between myself and Captain Bowers."

      "I shall tell him as soon as he comes in," said Miss Drewitt. "It is only right that he should know your opinion of him. Good-night."

      Mr. Tredgold said "good-night," and, walking to the door, stood for a moment regarding her thoughtfully. It was quite clear that in her present state of mind any appeal to her better nature would be worse than useless. He resolved to try the effect of a little humility.

      "I am very sorry for my behaviour in the garden," he said, sorrowfully.

      "It doesn't matter," said the girl; "I wasn't at all surprised."

      Mr. Tredgold recognised the failure of the new treatment at once. "Of course, when I went into the garden I hadn't any idea that you would be in such an unlikely place," he said, with a kindly smile. "Let us hope that you won't go there again."

      Miss Drewitt, hardly able to believe her ears, let him go without a word, and in a dazed fashion stood at the door and watched him up the lane. When the captain came in a little later she was sitting in a stiff and uncomfortable attitude by the window, still thinking.

      He was so tired after a long day in town that the girl, at considerable personal inconvenience, allowed him to finish his supper before recounting the manifold misdeeds of Mr. Tredgold. She waited until he had pushed his chair back and lit a pipe, and then without any preface plunged into the subject with an enthusiasm which she endeavoured in vain to make contagious. The captain listened in silence and turned a somewhat worried face in her direction when she had finished.