“Do you believe it?”

“No,” said the other, doggedly.

The girl drew a long breath and favoured him with a look in which triumph and anger were strangely mingled.

“I wonder you can visit him after thinking him capable of such a falsehood,” she said, at last.  “You certainly won’t be able to after I have told him.”

“I told you in confidence,” was the reply.  “I have regarded it all along as a story told to amuse Chalk; that is all.  I shall be very sorry if you say anything that might cause unpleasantness between myself and Captain Bowers.”

“I shall tell him as soon as he comes in,” said Miss Drewitt.  “It is only right that he should know your opinion of him.  Good-night.”

Mr. Tredgold said “good-night,” and, walking to the door, stood for a moment regarding her thoughtfully.  It was quite clear that in her present state of mind any appeal to her better nature would be worse than useless.  He resolved to try the effect of a little humility.

“I am very sorry for my behaviour in the garden,” he said, sorrowfully.

“It doesn’t matter,” said the girl; “I wasn’t at all surprised.”

Mr. Tredgold recognised the failure of the new treatment at once.  “Of course, when I went into the garden I hadn’t any idea that you would be in such an unlikely place,” he said, with a kindly smile.  “Let us hope that you won’t go there again.”

Miss Drewitt, hardly able to believe her ears, let him go without a word, and in a dazed fashion stood at the door and watched him up the lane.  When the captain came in a little later she was sitting in a stiff and uncomfortable attitude by the window, still thinking.

He was so tired after a long day in town that the girl, at considerable personal inconvenience, allowed him to finish his supper before recounting the manifold misdeeds of Mr. Tredgold.  She waited until he had pushed his chair back and lit a pipe, and then without any preface plunged into the subject with an enthusiasm which she endeavoured in vain to make contagious.  The captain listened in silence and turned a somewhat worried face in her direction when she had finished.

“We can’t all think alike,” he said, feebly, as she waited with flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes for the verdict.  “I told you he hadn’t taken the map.  As for those three idiots and their harebrained voyage—­”

“But Mr. Tredgold said that he didn’t believe in the treasure,” said the wrathful Prudence.  “One thing is, he can never come here again; I think that I made him understand that.  The idea of thinking that you could tell a falsehood!”

The captain bent down and, picking a used match from the hearthrug, threw it carefully under the grate.  Miss Drewitt watched him expectantly.

“We mustn’t quarrel with people’s opinions,” he said, at last.  “It’s a free country, and people can believe what they like.  Look at Protestants and Catholics, for instance; their belief isn’t the same, and yet I’ve known ’em to be staunch friends.”