Her tone was so decided and so bitter that Mr. Tredgold, merely staying long enough to urge extreme carefulness in the descent, did as he was desired.  He went into the sitting-room and, standing uneasily by the fireplace, tried to think out his line of action.  He was still floundering when he heard swift footsteps coming up the garden, and Miss Drewitt, very upright and somewhat flushed of face, confronted him.

“I—­I called to see the captain,” he said, hastily, “and Joseph told me you were in the garden.  I couldn’t see you anywhere, so I took the liberty of sitting out there to wait for the captain’s return.”

Miss Drewitt listened impatiently.  “Did you know that I was up in the crow’s-nest?” she demanded.

“Joseph never said a word about it,” said Mr. Tredgold, with an air of great frankness.  “He merely said that you were in the garden, and, not being able to find you, I thought that he was mistaken.”

“Did you know that I was up in the crow’s-nest?” repeated Miss Drewitt, with ominous persistency.

“A—­a sort of idea that you might be there did occur to me after a time,” admitted the other.

“Did you know that I was there?”

Mr. Tredgold gazed at her in feeble indignation, but the uselessness of denial made truth easier.  “Yes,” he said, slowly.

“Thank you,” said the girl, scornfully.  “You thought that I shouldn’t like to be caught up there, and that it would be an amusing and gentlemanly thing to do to keep me a prisoner.  I quite understand.  My estimate of you has turned out to be correct.”

“It was quite an accident,” urged Mr. Tredgold, humbly.  “I’ve had a very worrying day seeing them off at Biddlecombe, and when I heard you up in the nest I succumbed to sudden temptation.  If I had stopped to think—­if I had had the faintest idea that you would catechise me in the way you have done—­I shouldn’t have dreamt of doing such a thing.”

Miss Drewitt, who was standing with her hand on the latch of the door leading upstairs, as a hint that the interview was at an end, could not restrain her indignation.

“Your father and his friends have gone off to secure my uncle’s treasure, and you come straight on here,” she cried, hotly.  “Do you think that there is no end to his good-nature?”

“Treasure?” said the other, with a laugh.  “Why, that idea was knocked on the head when the map was burnt.  Even Chalk wouldn’t go on a roving commission to dig over all the islands in the South Pacific.”

“I don’t see anything to laugh at,” said the girl; “my uncle fully intended to burn it.  He was terribly upset when he found that it had disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” cried Mr. Tredgold, in accents of unmistakable amazement.  “Why, wasn’t it burnt after all?  The captain said it was.”

“He was going to burn it,” repeated the girl, watching him; “but somebody took it from the bureau.”