“I dare say it’ll be the better for it,” said the captain.

“O’ course it will,” retorted Selina.  “You don’t think I’d do it for pleasure, do you?  I thought you’d sit out in the garden, and of course it must come on to rain.”

The captain said it didn’t matter.

“Joseph,” said Miss Vickers, as she squeezed a wet cloth into her pail—­ “Joseph’s got a nice leg.  It’s healing very slow.”

The captain, halting by the kitchen door, said he was sorry to hear it.

“Though there’s worse things than bad legs,” continued Miss Vickers, soaping her scrubbing-brush mechanically; “being lost at sea, for instance.”

Captain Bowers made no reply.  Adopting the idea that all roads lead to Rome, Miss Vickers had, during her stay at Dialstone Lane, made many indirect attempts to introduce the subject of the treasure-seekers.

“I suppose those gentlemen are drowned?” she said, bending down and scrubbing noisily.

The captain, taking advantage of her back being turned towards him, eyed her severely.  The hardihood of the girl was appalling.  His gaze wandered from her to the bureau, and, as his eye fell on the key sticking up in the lid, the idea of reading her a much-needed lesson presented itself.  He stepped over the pail towards the bureau and, catching the girl’s eye as she looked up, turned the key noisily in the lock and placed it ostentatiously in his pocket.  A sudden vivid change in Selina’s complexion satisfied him that his manoeuvre had been appreciated.

“Are you afraid I shall steal anything?” she demanded, hotly, as he regained the kitchen.

The captain quailed.  “No,” he said, hastily.  “Somebody once took a paper of mine out of there, though,” he added.  “So I keep it locked up now.”

Miss Vickers dropped the brush in the pail, and, rising slowly to her feet, stood wiping her hands on her coarse apron.  Her face was red and white in patches, and the captain, regarding her with growing uneasiness, began to take in sail.

[Illustration:  “Miss Vickers stood wiping her hands on her coarse apron.”]

“At least, I thought they did,” he muttered.

Selina paid no heed.  “Get out o’ my kitchen,” she said, in a husky voice, as she brushed past him.

The captain obeyed hastily, and, stepping inside the dismantled room, stood for some time gazing out of window at the rain.  Then he filled his pipe and, removing a small chair which was sitting upside down in a large one, took its place and stared disconsolately at the patch of wet floor and the general disorder.

At the end of an hour he took a furtive peep into the kitchen.  Selina Vickers was sitting with her back towards him, brooding over the stove.  It seemed clear to him that she was ashamed to meet his eye, and, glad to see such signs of grace in her, he resolved to spare her further confusion by going upstairs.  He went up noisly and closed his door with a bang, but although he opened it afterwards and stood listening acutely he heard so sound from below.