“Yes, it does,” old Naylor agreed, with a private smile all to himself, whilst Mary still gazed into the fire.  “Quite ideal.  You’re a lucky young woman, Mary.”  He rose to take his leave.  “So, with our young folk happily married, and you installed, and friend Beaumaroy suited to his liking—­why, upon my word, we may ring the curtain down on a happy ending—­of Act I, at all events!”

She seemed to pay no heed to his words.  He stood for a moment, admiring her; not as a beauty, but a healthy comely young woman, stout-hearted, and with humanity and a sense of fun in her.  And, as he looked, his true feeling about the situation suddenly burst through all restraint and leapt from his lips.  “Though, for my part, under the circumstances, if I were you, I’d see old Irechester damned before I accepted the partnership!”

She turned to him—­startled, yet suddenly smiling.  He took her hand and raised it to his lips.

“Hush!  Not another word!  Good-bye, my dear Mary!”

The next day, as Mary, her morning round finished, sat at lunch with Cynthia, listening, or not listening, to her friend’s excusably, eager chatter about her approaching wedding, a note was delivered into her hands: 

The C.M.’s are in a hurry!  She’s back!  The window is boarded up again!  Come and see!  About 4 o’clock this afternoon.  B.

Mary kept the appointment.  She found Beaumaroy strolling up and down on the road in front of the cottage.  The Tower window was boarded up again, but with new strong planks, in a much more solid and workmanlike fashion.  If he were to try again, Mike would not find it so easy to negotiate, without making a dangerous noise over the job.

“Such impatience—­such undisguised rapacity—­is indecent and revolting,” Beaumaroy remarked.  He seemed to be in the highest spirits.  “I wonder if they’ve opened it yet!”

“They’ll see you prowling about outside, won’t they?”

“I hope so.  Indeed I’ve no doubt of it.  Mrs. Greeneyes is probably peering through the parlor window at this minute, and cursing me.  I like it!  To those people I represent law and order.  If they can rise to the conception of such a thing at all, I probably embody conscience.  When you come to think of it, it’s a pleasant turn of events that I should come to represent law and order and conscience to anybody, even to the Radbolts.”

“It is rather a change,” she agreed.  “But let’s walk on.  I don’t really much want to think of them.”

“That’s because you feel that you’re losing the bet.  I can’t stop them getting the money in the end, that’s your doing!  I can’t stop them cheating the Revenue, which is what they certainly mean to do, without exposing myself to more inconvenience than I am disposed to undergo in the cause of the Revenue.  Whereas if I had left the bag in the water-butt—­all your doing!  Aren’t you a little sorry?”

“Of course there is an aspect of the case—­” she admitted smiling.