“I beg your pardon, sir:  have you heard anything of the money you lost?  I—­we—­have been so ashamed to think of such a thing happening here.”

Tom’s evil spirit was roused.

“Have you heard anything of it, Miss Harvey?  For you seem to me the only person in the place who knows anything about the matter.”

“I, sir?” cried Grace, fixing her great startled eyes full on him.

“Why, ma’am,” said Tom, with a courtly smile, “you may possibly recollect, if you will so far tax your memory, that you had it in your hands at least a moment, when you did me the kindness to save my life; and as you were kind enough to inform me that I should recover it when I was worthy of it, I suppose I have not yet risen in your eyes to the required state of conversion and regeneration.”  And swinging impatiently away, he walked on, really afraid lest he should say something rude.

Grace half called after him, and then suddenly checking herself, rushed in to her mother with a wild and pale face.

“What is this Mr. Thurnall has been saying to me about his belt and money which he lost?”

“About what?  Has he been rude to you, the bad man?” cried Mrs. Harvey, dropping the pie-dish in some confusion, and taking a long while to pick up the pieces.

“About the belt—­the money which he lost?  Why don’t you speak, mother?”

“Belt—­money?  Ah, I recollect now.  He has lost some money, he says.”

“Of course he has.”

“How should you know anything?  I recollect there was some talk of it, though.  But what matter what he says?  He was quite passed away, I’ll swear, when they carried him up.”

“But, mother! mother! he says that I know about it; that I had it in my hands!”

“You?  Oh the wicked wretch, the false, ungrateful, slanderous child of wrath, with adder’s poison tinder his lips!  No, my child!  Though we’re poor, we’re honest!  Let him slander us, rob us, of our good name, send us to prison, if he will—­he cannot rob us of our souls.  We’ll be silent; we’ll turn the other cheek, and commit our cause to One above who pleads for the orphan and the widow.  We will not strive nor cry, my child.  Oh, no!” And Mrs. Harvey began fussing over the smashed pie-dish.

“I shall not strive nor cry, mother,” said Grace, who had recovered her usual calm:  “but he must have some cause for these strange words.  Do you recollect seeing me with the belt?”

“Belt, what’s a belt?  I know nothing about belts.  I tell you he’s a villain, and a slanderer.  Oh, that it should have come to this, to have my child’s fair fame blasted by a wretch that comes nobody knows where from, and has been doing nobody knows what, for aught I know!”

“Mother, mother! we know no harm of him.  If he is mistaken, God forgive him!”

“If he is mistaken?” went on Mrs. Harvey, still over the pie-dish:  but Grace gave her no answer.