“My good madam,” said he, “the part of Scripture which I appreciate best, just now, is the case of poor Job, where Satan has leave to rob and torment him to the utmost of his wicked will, provided only he does not touch his life, I wish,” he went on, lowering his voice, “to tell you something which I do not wish publicly talked of; but in which you may help me.  I had nearly fifteen hundred pounds about me when I came ashore last night, sewed in a belt round my waist.  It is gone.  That is all.”

Tom looked steadily at her as he spoke.  She turned pale, red, pale again, her lips quivered:  but she spoke no word.

“She has it, as I live!” thought Tom to himself. “’Frailty, thy name is woman!’ The canting, little, methodistical humbug!  She must have slipped it off my waist as I lay senseless.  I suppose she means to keep it in pawn, till I redeem it by marrying her.  Well I might take an uglier mate certainly; but when I do enter into the bitter bonds of matrimony, I should like to be sure, beforehand, that my wife was not a thief!”

Why, then, did not Tom, if he were so very sure of Grace’s having the belt, charge her with the theft? because he had found out already how popular she was, and was afraid of merely making himself unpopular; because, too, he took for granted that whosoever had his belt, had hidden it already beyond the reach of a search warrant; and, because, after all, an honourable shame restrained him.  It would be a poor return to the woman who had saved his life to charge her with theft the next morning; and more, there was something about that girl’s face which had made him feel that, if he had seen her put the belt into her pocket before his eyes, he could not have found the heart to have sent her to gaol.  “No!” thought he; “I’ll get it out of her, or whoever has it, and stay here till I do get it.  One place is as good as another to me.”

But what was Grace saying?

She had turned, after two or three minutes’ astonished silence, to her mother and Captain Willis—­

“Belt!  Mother!  Uncle!  What is this?  The gentleman has lost a belt?”

“Dear me!—­a belt!  Well, child, that’s not much to grieve over, when the Lord has spared his life and soul from the pit!” said her mother, somewhat testily.

“You don’t understand.  A belt, I say, full of money—­fifteen hundred pounds; he lost it last night.  Uncle!  Speak, quick!  Did you see a belt?”

Willis shook his head meditatively.  “I don’t, and yet I do, and yet I don’t again.  My brains were, well-nigh washed out of me, I know.  However, sir, I’ll think, and talk it over with you too; for if it be in the village, found it ought to be, and will be, with God’s help.”