Ambrotox and Limping Dick

  CHAPTER XIX.

  SAPPHIRE AND EMERALD.

  "What is it?" asked Amaryllis, as Dick turned to a shout, waving hishand.

  "I don't want to know what he wants, so I take his antics for good byes.Come on--let's get into the thick of this lot."

  "Was he suspicious?" she asked, when a bend in the road had hidden "TheRoyal George" and even the village green.

  "Melchard? Yes--on general principles. No more than that--unless----"

  "There's that cut on your cheek, Dick," said Amaryllis.

  "And there's the colour of your hair, la-ass," he answered, laughing.

  "He never saw under the bonnet," and she whisked the pig-tail forwardover her shoulder. "Look at that," she said.

  "How did you make it that common brown?" he asked, astonished.

  "Mother Brundage," said Amaryllis, "greased her hands from thefrying-pan and rubbed it down hand over hand as if she were hoisting asail. The Marquis of Ontario," she said, "would _know_ I wasn't hisdaughter, with that-coloured hair."

  "Then why did you go all to pieces," asked Dick, "at the sound ofMelchard's voice?"

  "It was that frightful man made me feel queer. Just as I was gettingbetter, I heard Melchard, and I thought the best place for myaristocratic nose was on my daddy's shoulder. Dick!" she cried, lookingup at his solemn face, "I really couldn't help feeling bad."

  "Most girls 'd've fainted. You're clever as paint," he said, "you turnyour two-spots into aces, and leave him in baulk every time. Poor,shaking kid! And I'd brandy in my pocket, and couldn't give it to you!"He pulled out his flask. "Have some--you'd better."

  Amaryllis with a little tender wrinkle somewhere in her beauty, laughedin his face.

  "Do I look," she asked, "as if I needed Dutch courage?"

  Colour of skin and splendour of eye answered their own question.

  "You _look_ top-hole," he said. "But you've had a heavy call on yourstrength."

  "What about you, then?" and she touched her left cheek, meaning his."One like that," she said, "and I should have been in bed for amonth--or dead."

  "Pepe said I was to keep on feeding you," he continued, passing over, ashe always did, she observed, her reference to himself, "and there's beenno chance but that beer and cheese. I meant to stuff you again at 'TheGeorge.'"

  On their left, in the very outskirts of Ecclesthorpe, was a little stonehouse, roofed with stone slabs, and surrounded with gardens, bee-hivesand flowers. Upon a wooden arch connecting its stone gate-posts waswritten "Cyclists' Rest. Tea, Minerals."

  "Um!" said Dick. "'Minerals' always makes me think of museums, but itonly means ginger-pop and wuss. Tea's the thing, if brandy isn't."

  He pushed the gate open; the hinges screamed, and a young woman came tothe door of the cottage. As they went towards her through hives andwallflowers,

  "How the bees do bumble!" said Amaryllis.

  "Pot o' fresh tea, miss," said Bunce to the round-faced, soft-eyed girlat the door. "And pikelets and parkin an' anything you've got to hand.We've nobbut ten minutes now forth to eat an' drink."

  He put two half-crowns on the table.

  "An' Ah'll never take change, my dear," he added, "so be 'tis ready inthree."

  In two and a half they were drinking it, Bunce-like, from the saucers;and Amaryllis once more in danger of the giggles.

  "Ma lass and self, miss," said Bunce, between gulps, "be footin' it toHarthborough Junction. Bain't there a train, five summat wi' anotherfive in it?"

  "Five fifteen," said the girl. "Lunnon way."

  "That'll be it. We're takin' 't easy-like o'er moor. Now, Ah do call tomind there be a track to left, some way down t' ro'd, as'll take 'eegentle and pleasant 'tween two gradely hummocks down into Harthborough.But how far out o' Ecclesthorpe that track takes off the pike, I can'tbring to mind. 'Tis not a ro'd proper but indistink like an' wanderin'.So Ah be feared o' missin' it."

  "T' owd Drovers' Track, tha meanst. 'Tis easy findin'," said the girl."Thou turn'st off to left by two thorns wi' a white stone by root o' t'girt 'un. But they stand a long mile down t' road. Now, if 'ee likes togo through house an' cross t' paddock, Ah'll put 'ee in sheep paththat'll take thee to Drovers' Track where un runs up 'tween t'rocks--Bull's Neck, they call it."

  When they had finished their tea, and Dick, from the sweetstuff counter,had crammed into already burdened pockets two half-pound packets ofchocolate, the girl led them to the further gate of her father'spaddock, whence she indicated the highest point of the ridge over which"T' owd Drovers' Track" threaded its way.

  "Howd eyes on t' lofty knob of 'un," she said, "and thou'lt not stray."

  For two or three hundred yards the pair walked in silence; and now thatterror had passed with the imminence of danger, and that no strange eyessurrounded her for which she must play a part not learned nor rehearsed,the terrible pressure which had brought Amaryllis so close to hercompanion was relaxed--not annihilated, but withdrawn to lurk in sky andair, instead of squeezing the very life and breath out of her physicalbody.

  Dick, therefore, though not two feet from her side, seemed all at once ahundred miles away. The man whose arm had held her, and whose coat shehad rubbed her face against, she now found herself too shy to touch orspeak to. Yet she wished to hear his voice, and even more, longed tofeel that he was really there--the same man, no other than she had foundhim.

  She fixed her eyes upon him, hoping he would feel them and respond--helpher somehow to bridge this silly gulf. But he strode on, at a pace whichmade her run lest she should fall behind.

  His eyes were set straight forward, his head a little bent. No smokecame from the pipe in his mouth, and the whole expression of face andfigure was of dogged endurance. A little trickle of blood had startedafresh from the wound on his cheek. She wondered what had set it flowingagain. Could it have been some clumsiness of her own in her convulsiveclinging to him?

  A woman's compassion, more easily aroused by a cut finger than by asuffering mind, narrowed the chasm between them, until a small, softvoice bridged it.

  "Dick!" she cried. "Oh, Dick."

  But the stiff face remained rigid, so the frightened girl quickened herpace until she was well in front; then, turning, she saw that their lidscovered two-thirds of the eye-balls, and that the mechanism of the manwas driven by an impulse of which, if it were his at all, he was surelynot conscious.

  As he reached her side, she laid a hand on him, and, "Dick!" she criedagain.

  The man started, turning his face the wrong way.

  The eyes did not open, but the jaw muscles relaxed, letting the coldpipe fall from his teeth. The blind effort which he made to catch itoverbalanced the automaton.

  He pitched forward, and would have fallen on his face, but for theshoulder which stopped his head, and the arms that clutched his reelingbody.

  Accurate instinct loosened her joints as the weight struck her, and shecame slowly to her knees, sinking back until she sat upon her heels, sothat the man received no shock. She had turned halfside-ways as she wentdown; and kneeling, held him across her, with the uninjured cheekstrained upon her left shoulder, and his heels far away to her right.

  She looked down into the face, where the eyes were now wholly covered.

  The dark semi-circles under the closed lids and the deepened lines ofthe thin face moved in her compassion as tender as she felt for thebleeding bruise on the cheek. She remembered how he had nursed her, andgiven her, by his mere sympathy and control, that hour's wonderfulsleep. She remembered him crawling, at the acme of her terror, throughthe slit of the window; saving her from the Dutch woman; turning hisback while she dressed; leaping like a heaven-sent devil over thestair-rail; fighting Ockley with his fists--and refused to remember thatsame enemy brought utterly to an end of his enmity.

  Her heart swelled, and beat heavily with the sense of ownership and thedread of losing what was her own; it was a fear more poignant than anyother of the fears which she had suffered in a long chain since she fellasleep in Randal Bella
my's study--only last night!

  Was it death--death which she had seen once already to-day--was it thatcoming to her here against her heart? Or was it but with him as it hadbeen with her in the Brundage bedroom--the awful need of sleep.

  She bent her ear close over his lips, and heard the breath long, andregular.

  She forgot his wasted features in the beauty of the long eyelashestouching his cheeks; and just because she could not see what the lidswere hiding, she remembered her walk down through the wood below theManor House, and that foolish phrase, "blue as a hummin-bird's weskit,"which had then haunted her, till she found him playing with Gorgon inthe road; and from that to her bewilderment twenty-four hours later,when he had called the dog Zola. She had reproved the enormity of thesyncopated pun, but Dick had insisted that Zola fitted an animal whoseexpression was always either disgusted or disgusting.

  She must not keep him here, so near the stone cottage, and the road.They might be seen.

  He had offered her brandy. Carefully she felt his coat. The rightoutside pocket she could not reach, but there was a hard lump in it,pressing against her cramped knees.

  She leaned over sideways, twisted her legs in front of her, and made alap into which, by edging away from the heavy body, she let the headslide gently. She got the flask out, pulled the metal cup from its base,and into it poured a little brandy. With tender force she managed atlast to send a trickle of the spirit into his mouth.

  He choked, tried to swallow, coughed violently, and then opened hiseyes.

  "I told you," he said, "that you needed brandy, not to kill me with it.What's happened?"

  "You were walking in your sleep," she began.

  "Sleeping in my walk, perhaps," he admitted. "Bad enough, but verydifferent."

  His senses coming back to him, Dick felt a wet drop on his forehead,brushed it away, and glanced at the sky, but not, as Amaryllis expected,at her.

  "Well," she said, "I was frightened."

  "Why?"

  "You dropped your pipe, tried to catch it, and fell on your face,"explained Amaryllis.

  Dick felt his nose and eyebrows. "No, I never!" he declared indignantly.

  Amaryllis laughed shakily.

  "You see, I'm softer than the ground. You fell on me." And she pattedher left shoulder.

  "Your fault, I'm afraid. Must have tipped you right over."

  "No, I just subsided--quite neatly. And you never got a bump, Dick. ButI was afraid--afraid, you know."

  "I must be in rotten condition, going to pieces like that. Why, look atyou--been through twice as much."

  "Oh, no," she answered, snatching greedily at the opportunity of tellinga little of what she had been thinking. "Did I drive two hundred andfifty miles in the dark, at fifty miles an hour? Did I climb and crawl,and fight, and nurse a squealing girl after carrying her for miles?"

  "Three hundred yards," said Dick dryly. "And you must have been shammingto know anything about it."

  "Mrs. Brundage told me," she answered, "that you came through the woodcarrying me in your arms."

  And so was he in hers--the reversal of their cases struck him like asoft, heavy blow on the heart.

  And so much puzzled was Amaryllis by the strange intensity of his eyeslifted to hers that she found the gaze hard to endure, and moveduneasily.

  "We ought not to stay here, Dick," she said.

  He started scrambling to his feet, but Amaryllis was before him, andgiving him a hand, helped him to rise with a pull of which the vigoursurprised him.

  "You're strong," he said, swaying unsteadily for a moment.

  She flushed with pleasure at male praise.

  "I'm awfully strong. I've felt perfectly safe, you see, eversince--since I was such a fool and you made me sleep and be sensible."

  Dick looked about him, and caught sight of the stone roof of the cottagewhere the bees bumbled.

  "I didn't get far before I crumpled," he said. "Let's get a move on."

  As they walked with their eyes on the cleft knob of the ridge, hereverted to her last words.

  "Not scared any more? Then what price Melchard?" he asked, "andmalingering pig-tailed wenches that hide their faces and sob on theirdaddies' shoulders?"

  "It was that frightful Chinaman, Dick. Yes, I was afraid then. I wasafraid--afraid you'd----"

  "Take him on? Nothin' doing," he answered. "I should've stood just adog's chance against the village hero, my dear girl, and the Malay madejust one bite of him. Next time that lopsided serang looms on thehorizon, you won't see me for dust and small stones."

  The tone, perhaps, more than the words in which the man of whom shecould not help making a hero seemed to disparage himself, annoyed MissCaldegard.

  It was as if one good friend of hers had maligned another, and she couldnot quarrel with the traducer without falling out with the traduced.

  "But it was Melchard's voice that made you take a lump of me betweenyour teeth and bite a hole in my coat," he went on. "There's a hideouswound just under this." And he picked at two broken threads on hisshoulder.

  "That was just hate and disgust, not fear. And it's horrid to say I bityou, when you know I didn't. But I was afraid, Dick, that you'd have todo something to that huge dwarf-thing, and get hurt--and----"

  "Well, I've told you I'll bolt if he shows his face," he repeated, moregently. But seeing her flush and frown angrily, "What's wrong,Amaryllis?" he asked, and drew nearer to her side as they walked.

  But she kept the distance undiminished.

  "I don't like the way you speak of yourself," she replied hotly. "Itmakes me feel angry--as if someone else had done it."

  "Done what?"

  "Lied about you--said you were afraid of a hideous freak out of acircus. You!"

  The brown eyes blazed on him with the anger meant for his hypotheticslanderer. And Dick, between the joy with which her annexation of hishonour filled him, and his weakened control, found himself on the edgeof an explosion of feeling; but brought back common-sense andgood-humour to them both with a touch of his antiseptic cynicism.

  "Can you swim?" he asked.

  "Yes," said the girl, round-eyed.

  "If you couldn't, would you jump in after another fool that couldn't?"

  "Another? Oh!" exclaimed the girl.

  "Well, you would be, if you couldn't. But you can. Now, would you jumpin?"

  "No. I should run for a rope or something."

  "That's me," said Dick. "Next time that crop-eared, chrome-colouredcoolie shows against the sky-line, I run for a rope or something."

  The wrinkles disappeared from her forehead, and once more Amaryllisslipped her hand through the bend of his arm. She did it as forfriendship or support, but her thought was for him. His rest had beennothing, and at any moment that deadly sleep might seize him again. Shemade up her mind that next time, even should they have to finish theirwalking by night, his sleep should be at least as long as that he hadgiven her.

  "I'm a pig to be cross," she said. "But I'm only not cross now becauseyou make me laugh with your ridiculous good temper. But, Dick----"

  She had felt that, without her linked arm, his steps would already bewandering.

  "Well?" he said.

  "Next time it's too much for you, I'm going to let you sleep. You must."

  He looked at his watch.

  "It's a quarter to three," he said. "If we missed that train atfive-fifteen, we should have to wait till ten for the next."

  "And it'd be much safer," Amaryllis broke in, "to wait on the moor, thanin a village or a station where people could see us."

  "Yes. I'm not clear-headed enough now to see into Melchard's mind, but Ican still calculate on what I know. If he didn't suspect us, he'll gothe round of his pickets, beginning with Gallowstree Dip. If he didsuspect, he'll come this way after us, and run down towards the Londonroad and look across the moor, along the Drovers' Track from thehawthorns and the white stone. He won't see us--we are in a fold till weget a mile further at least. He'll go on towards the main
road, but whenhe meets his picket that nobody like us two has passed, he'll come backand try the Drovers' Track."

  "He didn't suspect," insisted the girl.

  "We'll bank on that, then," said Dick, "--if we can find a bush or aditch to hide in."

  The faint path they were following here reached the lowest point of thedepression which hid them from the road and from the cottage by whoseback door they had left it, and soon began to rise.

  The ascent, as they topped it, proved, however, to be concerned merelywith crossing a spur, below which the path wound about the edge of abowl-shaped hollow, rimmed and lined with dark-green, close-croppedgrass; and at the bottom lay a tiny tarn.

  So steep were the sides that a broad band of green was reflected to theeyes bent down upon the still water. And this circle of mirrored green,embracing a disc of the sky's azure, stared up at them like a pupil-lessblue eye.

  "Oh!" exclaimed Amaryllis, "it's a sapphire set in emerald!"

  Down a winding path, vague as a wrinkle on a young face, and worn, saidAmaryllis, by ghostly hoofs of departed sheep, they crept to the pool'sedge.

  They sat on a little irregular terrace, a few feet above the water, andDick, taking the cup from his flask, and having dipped, tasted, rinsedand filled again, passed it to Amaryllis.

  "Good water," he said, watching her drink. Amaryllis smiled on him asshe finished, and plunged into the ample pocket of Mrs. Brundage's skirtfor her chocolate. She broke off a lump and gave him the cup to fillonce more.

  "It's lovely water," she said, munching; then poured out half the waterhe had given her. "But I'm going to spoil yours," she went on, andpoured in brandy till the cup almost brimmed. "Just obey meekly foronce."

  "That's easy," said Dick.

  "For brandy, or for me?" asked the girl.

  But Dick was drinking.

  "Now lie down along the ledge. Be quick. I can't enjoy my chocolate tillyou do."

  He looked at her with heavy eyes.

  "I must," he said. "The brandy's finished me."

  Without rising, he drew up his legs to the terrace level, stretched themout, said: "Wake me, if the chocolate makes you sleepy," and rolled fulllength on his left side.

  "Lift your head a little, and I'll spread a bit of my skirt under it.There's plenty of it," said Amaryllis, shifting towards him as she sat.

  She got no answer. He was dead asleep.

  Five minutes she gave him to sink deeper into the unknown, while shehovered above his dreams like a seagull over the course of a streamwhich has disappeared into a tunnel.

  At last she lifted his head and drew a fold of her skirt beneath it; butwas not yet content; for she knew the weariness of lying on the sidewhen the unsupported neck and heavy head increase the pressure on theunder shoulder. So once more, to slip her knee beneath the neck for apillow, she raised the head--and there came to her heart and breath aflutter which seemed to make its attack through fingers and up the arms.She felt, with a difference, the strong, subtle, ineffable thrill of awoman's early handlings of her earliest child.

  In spite of her terror in the night, her danger of the early morning,the men fighting and the man dead; in spite of the excitement and risksof the afternoon, shaking the heart in relief only less than inencounter, and in spite of aching head and limbs, stiffening to crampwhile she still sat and the man still slept, Amaryllis knew herselfhappier than ever in her life before.

  Not rejoicing in the future--neither in hope nor in fear of what thesleeper might feel, what ask for, when danger was behind him andfighting once more a splendid thing belonging to newspapers and books;instinctively aware, perhaps, that his spirit had moved already half-wayto meet hers, yet so far from asking, even of her own mind, whether DickBellamy loved her or no, that she did not even mentally formulate theidea of love to explain her own feelings, Amaryllis sat in blissful,unphilosophic enjoyment of service and protection.

  Was she not at once his pillow and his defence? Was he not sleeping likea little child whose fever has abated? And had she not a dog's ears anda sailor's eyes for his enemies? And did she not know just where to layher hand on the butt of Ockley's pistol, how precious were its twocartridge's, and how near, therefore, to use each with effect, she mustlet an enemy approach?

  She was happy, then, and time was nothing, until the man's head moved onher numbed thigh, and a deep sigh came from his chest.

  She leaned over him and lifted the lock of straight black hair which hadfallen over the left eye, stroking it back as he would have brushed it,and murmuring, "Lie still, dear, lie still," in just such words andtones as some day she would use to a smaller man on a softer pillow.

  But the instinct of the man of many wilds had told him that his hour'srest was over.

  He sighed again, turned on his back, and opened his eyes.

  He saw her face hanging over him--upside down, it seemed. Yet eveninverted, and seen through the mists of sleep, that face conveyedsomething which he did not understand, something so strange that hecaught his breath, gasping, and blundered to his feet.

  The girl still sat, looking up at him.

  "What is it?" he asked, sharply.

  But Amaryllis had forgotten herself altogether, and did not know that hefound his wonder in her face.

  "What is what?" she asked, simply.

  "Your face----" he began, and could find no more words.

  "My face," she echoed, puzzled, and feeling blindly for a handkerchief."It's all right, isn't it?"

  "It's glorious--shining with happiness," he answered, his voice soundinglike that of a man in pain.

  "Weren't you glad," asked Amaryllis, "when you'd got me off to sleep,and when I woke up all alive again? I know it didn't make you lookanything but stern and pre-occupied and business-like; I felt as if youwere pleased, though. I'm different, and show things in my face, Isuppose."

  "But you were looking like that when I opened my eyes."

  "Well?" said Amaryllis.

  "You hadn't had time to know whether I was well or ill, strong or weak.And you looked as if it had been there a long time."

  "What?" she asked again.

  "The--the expression," said Dick, his tone as fierce as his words werelame.

  Very sweetly, and with no taint of derision in the sweetness, Amaryllislaughed.

  "The gloriousness? I'd been watching you all the time, you see, and Iknew it was doing you lots of good--and--and I was proud of beinguseful, perhaps. So, of course I looked happy and shining."

  "When did you take my head on your knees?" he asked, sternly.

  But this time she understood every furrow of his frown.

  "As soon as you were asleep," she answered.

  He looked at his watch. It was four o'clock.

  "And I never moved?" he asked.

  "No."

  "Nor you?"

  "No, Dick."

  "An hour and a quarter! My God!" he exclaimed, "you must be as stiff asa pious book. And I'm damned if you're not sitting there because youcan't get up!"

  "Oh, yes, I could. But give me a hand," she answered; and he pulled herto her feet.

  She staggered, and he caught her by an elbow.

  "One of them's as fast asleep as you were," she said. "It'll go off in aminute."

  But for Dick Bellamy, caught at last on the ebb of his resistance, oneelbow was not enough. So he seized the other, and by the pair held heroff from him, looking into her eyes.

  "Tell me what it meant," he said, "--your face."

  "I've told you," she replied, with serious eyes.

  "I saw it. It must have meant a great deal more than your words, or agreat deal less than it looked. If you were taking a cheap pleasure inbeing charitable, your face is a liar, Amaryllis. If you find greathappiness in being loved, _you_ are."

  She ignored the accusation, merely answering:

  "I might."

  But she was still so serious that Dick could not speak.

  "It wasn't exactly that, though," she explained. "I want to be astruthf
ul as my face--if you could read it right."

  "Tell me, then."

  "It was my half, I think, that made me so awfully contented."

  "Your half? That means--if you mean anything at all--you mean, your halfwas loving me?"

  She nodded, and spoke before he could answer the nod.

  "Of course I might not have stayed contented long, if you hadn't beenlike that too. You are, aren't you?"

  His hands had slipped up her arms to her shoulders, and it sent a pangof wild joy through her content to feel them trembling while they heldher.

  "Contented? No, by God, I'm not! _Contented's_ as much as saying I couldhave enough of you. But I've loved you ever since I heard you callingZola in that wonderful voice of yours. Before I even saw your faceclose, your 'Gorgon! Gorgon!' gave me a pain I was afraid of, because Iwanted to be hurt again. It made me angry. You've been waking me up atfour in the morning and never letting me sleep again. You've filled myhead with pictures--a whole cinema of pictures; and my ears with sounds!Your dress on the stairs; your voice calling 'Dad! dad!' from thegarden, and humming little tunes I'd never heard till you sang 'em,coming in with your arms full of leaves and flowers. Seems like monthsyou've filled me, and it's only four days. No, I'm not contented,Amaryllis, but I'm damned happy."

  Then his arms crossed each other round her body; and it seemed toAmaryllis that she sank away into space filled with an ecstasy; andthat, after a while, which was not time, she was fetched back into timeand to earth by hands so strong that they had brought the ecstasy withthem also.

  There were kisses, not all his.

  Then, to focus her joy, she thrust it away from her; and, seeing DickBellamy's countenance, she remembered how he had spoken of what he hadfound, when he awoke, in hers.

  His eyes shone upon her as she now knew she had always wished them toshine. Splendid eyes, she had called them in that part of herself whereshe had for a long time--quite two days--made pretence of deafness; eyesvery blue and firm, but seldom, until now, to be long held.

  "Dick," she said, "that's the first time--just what I wanted."

  "What?" he asked.

  "Your voice has spoken to me, your ears have heard me, your eyes havelooked at me. But now, your eyes are listening to mine. Oh, Dick!" sheexclaimed.

  "Yes," he answered gravely, "it's great to be free."

  "Tremendous!" said Amaryllis.

  Her hands were looking for her handkerchief in the Brundage pocket. Theyencountered a comb, the half-packet of chocolate, a pair of white cottongloves which raised a moment's hope, and Dick's pipe, which she hadpicked up as they started again on their way; but no handkerchief! Andher cheeks were wet with half-dried tears, and Dick was coming nearer.

  "Oh, please," she cried, "do lend me a hanky. You made me a bodice ofone--in that beastly room with the woman--and you took it from a bundleof them, out of your coat pocket. I felt them there when I wore it. Ileft the one you gave me behind, and I've lost my own."

  The pathetical-comical expression of a pretty woman in danger of usingelementary means to dry her tears, made Dick Bellamy chuckle withlaughter of a quality that Amaryllis had not heard from him before,while he chose the least rumpled handkerchief from his stock of four,and shook it open for her.

  She took it, blessing him as women will bless a man for such relief;and, as she used it, there struck him, like a smack in his face, thememory of her hand and another handkerchief.

  "I saw you use your own," he said, "on the box of that Noah's Ark of awagonette. I remember your pretty fingers and action. I hoped nobodybehind us would see that it was a lady blowing her nose. It was a littlehandkerchief--your own," he insisted. "When did you lose it?"

  Amaryllis perceived that the question bore upon their safety, andpuckered her forehead, thinking.

  "I wiped my fingers with it, after I'd taken Tod Sloan's bridle off,"she answered, "There was a sticky mess of hay and chaff on them from thebit, and I remember wiping it off with my handkerchief."

  "Seen it since?" he asked.

  "No," said the girl. "Does it matter? Even if I did drop it then,Melchard wouldn't go in there. He hadn't any horses."

  "The ostler called after us, you remember. He was waving somethingwhite."

  "Oh! You didn't tell me. And you'd given him half a crown!" saidAmaryllis.

  "Seemed a grateful sort of bloke, didn't he?" said Dick, ruefully.

  "And wanted to give it back to me? Oh, Dick! Melchard was there, closeby, talking to the handsome clergyman."

  "Was it marked."

  "An embroidery-stitched A.C. That's all," said Amaryllis.

  "C doesn't stand for Bunce. Let's get out of this," said Dick Bellamy.