But there was plainly a mystery.  What were the burdens, heavier even than unjust suspicion, of which she had spoken?  There was no harm in asking.

“But, Grace—­Miss Harvey—­You will not be angry with me if I ask?—­Why speak so often, as if finding this money depended on you alone?  You wish me to recover it, I know; and if you can counsel me, why not do so?  Why not tell me whom you suspect?”

Her old wild terror returned in an instant.  She stopped short—­

“Suspect?  I suspect?  Oh, I have suspected too many already!  Suspected till I began to hate my fellow-creatures—­hate life itself, when I fancied that I saw ‘thief’ written on every forehead.  Oh, do not ask me to suspect any more!”

Tom was silent.

“Oh,” she cried, after a moment’s pause.  “Oh, that we were back in those old times I have read of, when they used to put people to the torture to make them confess!”

“Why, in Heaven’s name?”

“Because then I should have been tortured, and have confessed it, true or false, in the agony, and have been hanged.  They used to hang them then, and put them out of their misery; and I should have been put out of mine, and no one have been blamed but me for ever more.”

“You forget,” said Tom, lost in wonder, “that then I should have blamed you, as well as every one else.”

“True; yes, it was a foolish faithless word.  I did not take it, and it would have been no good to my soul to say I did.  Lies cannot prosper, cannot prosper, Mr. Thurnall!” and she stopped short again.

“What, my dear Grace?” said he, kindly enough; for he began to fear that she was losing her wits.

“I saved your life!”

“You did, Grace.”

“Then, I never thought to ask for payment; but, oh, I must now.  Will you promise me one thing in return?”

“What you will, as I am a man and a gentleman; I can trust you to ask nothing which is not worthy of you.”

Tom spoke truth.  He felt,—­perhaps love made him feel it all the more easily,—­that whatever was behind, he was safe in that woman’s hands.

“Then promise me that you will wait one month, only one month:  ask no questions; mention nothing to any living soul.  And if, before that time, I do not bring you that belt back, send me to Bodmin Gaol, and let me bear my punishment.”

“I promise,” said Tom.  And the two walked on again in silence, till they neared the head of the village.

Then Grace went forward, like Nausicaa when she left Ulysses, lest the townsfolk should talk; and Tom sat down upon a bank and watched her figure vanishing in the dusk.

Much he puzzled, hunting up and down in his cunning head for an explanation of the mystery.  At last he found one which seemed to fit the facts so well, that he rose with a whistle of satisfaction, and walked homewards.

Evidently, her mother had stolen the belt; and Grace was, if not a repentant accomplice—­for that he could not believe,—­at least aware of the fact.