Darrel sat looking thoughtfully at the speaker.

“A detective ?” said Trove, rising erect, a stern look upon him.

“Yes—­Dick Roberts.”

“Roberts, a detective!” said Trove, in a whisper.  Then he turned to Darrel, adding, “I shall have to find the Frenchman.”

“Louis Leblanc?” the young man asked.

“Louis Leblanc,” Trove answered with surprise.

“He has been found,” said the other.

“Then I shall be able to prove my point.  He came to his home drunk one night and began to bully his family.  I was boarding with the Misses Tower and went over and took the shot and iron from his hands and got him into bed.  The woman begged me to bring them away.”

“He declares that he never saw the shot or the iron.”

Darrel rose and drew his chair a bit nearer.

“Very well, but there’s the wife,” said he, quickly.

“She will swear, too, that she never saw them.”

“And how about the daughter?” Trove inquired.

“Run away and nowhere to be found,” was the answer of the other young man.  “I’ve told you bad news enough, but there’s more, and you ought to know it all.  Louis Leblanc is in Quebec, and he says that a clock tinker lent him money with which to leave the States.”

“It was I, an’ God bring him to repentance—­the poor beggar!” said Darrel.  “He agreed to repay me within a fortnight an’ was in sore distress, but he ran away, an’ I got no word o’ him.”

“Well, the inference is, that you, being a friend of the accused, were trying to help him.”

“I’m caught in a web,” said Trove, leaning forward, his head upon his hands, “and Leblanc’s wife is the spider.  How about the money?  Have they been able to identify it?”

“In part, yes; there’s one bill that puzzles them.  It’s that of an old bank in New York City that failed years ago and went out of business.”

Then a moment of silence and that sound of the clocks—­like footsteps of a passing caravan, some slow and heavy, some quick, as if impatient to be gone.

“Ye speeding seconds!” said Darrel, as he crossed to the bench.  “Still thy noisy feet.”

Then he walked up and down, thinking.

The friend of Sidney Trove put on his hat and stood by the door.

“Don’t forget,” said he, “you have many friends, or I should not be able to tell you these things.  Keep them to yourself and go to work.  Of course you will be able to prove your innocence.”

“I thank you with all my heart,” said Trove.

“Ay, ’twas friendly,” the old man remarked, taking the boy’s hand.

“I have to put my trust in Tunk—­the poor liar!” said Trove, when they were alone.

“No,” Darrel answered quickly.  “Were ye drowning, ye might as well lay hold of a straw.  Trust in thy honour; it is enough.”

“Let’s go and see Polly,” said the young man.