“Where?” asked Bill with unexpected promptness.

“Never you mind, just now.”

Bill assumed an air of injured but anxious virtue.

“’Course, if you don’t choose to trust me, it’s another matter . . . but I’d like to know you came by it honest.”

“Of course she did!” Arthur Miles spoke up to the rescue hotly.

Bill turned a stare on him, but dropped it, somewhat abashed.

“Oh, well, I’m not sayin’ . . .” he muttered sulkily, and then with a change of tone, “But find yer an Island—­somewheres in the Bristol Channel—­me!  It’s ridicklus.”

Tilda averted her face, and appeared to study the masts of the shipping.  Her cheek was red and something worked in her throat, but in a few seconds she answered quite cheerfully—­

“Well, the first thing is to pick up a breakfast.  If Bill can’t find us an Island, maybe ’e can show us a respectable ’ouse, where they make their cawfee strong—­an’ not the ’ouse where ’e slept last night, if it’s all the same to ’im.”

They found a small but decent tavern—­“The Wharfingers’ Arms, Shipping Gazette daily”—­and breakfasted on coffee and boiled eggs.  The coffee was strong and sticky.  It did Bill good.  But he persisted in treating the adventure as a wild-goose chase.  He had never heard of Holmness.  It was certainly not a port; and, that being so, how—­unless they chartered a steamer—­could they be landed there?

“That’s for you to find out,” maintained Tilda.

“Well,” said he, rising from the meal, “I don’t mind lookin’ around an’ makin’ a few inquiries for yer.  But I warn yer both it’s ’opeless.”

“You can post this letter on yer way,” she commanded.  “I’ll pay fer the breakfast.”

But confidence forsook her as through the small window they watched him making his way—­still a trifle unsteadily—­towards the docks.  For a little distance ’Dolph followed him, but halted, stood for a minute wagging his tail, and so came trotting back.

“’E’ll manage it,” said Tilda at length.

Arthur Miles did not answer.

“Oh, I know what you’re thinkin’!” she broke out.  “But ‘tisn’ everyone can look down on folks bein’ born with your advantages!” She pulled herself up sharply, glancing at the back of the boy’s head:  for he had turned his face aside.  “No—­I didn’ mean that.  An’—­an’ the way you stood up fer me bein’ honest was jus’ splendid—­after what you’d said about tellin’ lies, too.”

They wandered about the docks all day, dodging official observation, and ate their midday crust behind the cinder-shed that had been their shelter over-night.  Tilda had regained and kept her old courage, and in the end her faith was justified.

Towards nightfall Bill sought them out where he had first found them, by the quay-edge close above the Severn Belle.