m, where
she slept with a younger sister, was on the ground floor of her father's
house in a wing that butted on to the street, and I could knock at the
pane as I passed by. Yet still she seemed uneasy, and I hastened to say
what--not even then knowing her quite as well as I did later--I thought
would comfort her in any fears she had. "It's a very easy job, Maisie," I
said; "and the ten pounds'll go a long way in buying that furniture we're
always talking about."

She started worse than before when I said that and gripped the hand that
I had round her waist.

"Hughie!" she exclaimed. "He'll not be giving you ten pounds for a bit of
a ride like that! Oh, now I'm sure there's danger in it! What would a man
be paying ten pounds for to anybody just to take a message? Don't go,
Hughie! What do you know of yon man except that he's a stranger that
never speaks to a soul in the place, and wanders about like he was spying
things? And I would liefer go without chair or table, pot or pan, than
that you should be running risks in a lonesome place like that, and at
that time, with nobody near if you should be needing help. Don't go!"

"You're misunderstanding," said I. "It's a plain and easy thing--I've
nothing to do but ride there and back. And as for the ten pounds, it's
just this way: yon Mr. Gilverthwaite has more money than he knows what to
do with. He carries sovereigns in his pockets like they were sixpenny
pieces! Ten pounds is no more to him that ten pennies to us. And we've
had the man in our house seven weeks now, and there's nobody could say an
ill word of him."

"It's not so much him," she answered. "It's what you may meet--there!
For you've got to meet--somebody. You're going, then?"

"I've given my word, Maisie," I said. "And you'll see there'll be no
harm, and I'll give you a tap at the window as I pass your house coming
back. And we'll do grand things with that ten pounds, too."

"I'll never close my eyes till I hear you, then," she replied. "And I'll
not be satisfied with any tap, neither. If you give one, I'll draw the
blind an inch, and make sure it's yourself, Hughie."

We settled it at that, with a kiss that was meant on my part to be one of
reassurance, and presently we parted, and I went off to get my bicycle in
readiness for the ride.

CHAPTER III

THE RED STAIN

It was just half-past nine by the town clocks when I rode out across the
old Border Bridge and turned up the first climb of the