her, and at the same moment Mr. and Mrs. Loveday
discreetly retired by the other door.

'Is it peace?' he asked tenderly.

'O yes,' she anxiously replied. 'I--didn't mean to make you think I had
no heart.' At this Bob inclined his countenance towards hers. 'No,' she
said, smiling through two incipient tears as she drew back. 'You are to
show good behaviour for six months, and you must promise not to frighten
me again by running off when I--show you how badly you have served me.'

'I am yours obedient--in anything,' cried Bob. 'But am I pardoned?'

Youth is foolish; and does a woman often let her reasoning in favour of
the worthier stand in the way of her perverse desire for the less worthy
at such times as these? She murmured some soft words, ending with 'Do
you repent?'

It would be superfluous to transcribe Bob's answer.

Footsteps were heard without.

'O begad; I forgot!' said Bob. 'He's waiting out there for a light.'

'Who?'

'My friend Derriman.'

'But, Bob, I have to explain.'

But Festus had by this time entered the lobby, and Anne, with a hasty
'Get rid of him at once!' vanished upstairs.

Here she waited and waited, but Festus did not seem inclined to depart;
and at last, foreboding some collision of interests from Bob's new
friendship for this man, she crept into a storeroom which was over the
apartment into which Loveday and Festus had gone. By looking through a
knot-hole in the floor it was easy to command a view of the room beneath,
this being unceiled, with moulded beams and rafters.

Festus had sat down on the hollow window-bench, and was continuing the
statement of his wrongs. 'If he only knew what he was sitting upon,' she
thought apprehensively, 'how easily he could tear up the flap, lock and
all, with his strong arm, and seize upon poor Uncle Benjy's possessions!'
But he did not appear to know, unless he were acting, which was just
possible. After a while he rose, and going to the table lifted the
candle to light his pipe. At the moment when the flame began diving into
the bowl the door noiselessly opened and a figure slipped across the room
to the window-bench, hastily unlocked it, withdrew the box, and beat a
retreat. Anne in a moment recognized the ghostly intruder as Festus
Derriman's uncle. Before he could get out of the room Festus set down
the candle and turned.

'What--Uncle Benjy--haw, haw! Here at this time of night?'

Uncle Benjy's eyes grew paralyzed, and