“Holmness!” ejaculated Miss Sally.  “Holmness, did you say?”

“That’s so.  Might it be anywhere in your parts?”

“Of course it is.  But Holmness, my good sir, is an island.”

“She mentioned that, now I come to think of it.  Island or not, she’ll get there, if she bursts; and I won’t believe other till I hear from the Dead Letter Office.”

“You addressed a letter to Holmness? . . .  But it’s too absurd; the place is a mere barren rock, three good miles from the mainland.  Nothing there but rabbits, and in summer a few sheep.”

“Mayhap she didn’t know it when she gave the address.  But,” persisted Mr. Hucks doggedly, “she’s there if she’s alive.  You go back and try.”

[He gave Tilda, as the reader knows, more credit than she deserved; but from this may be deduced a sound moral—­that the value of probity, as an asset in dealing, is quite incalculable.]

Miss Sally considered for a full minute—­for two minutes, Mr. Hucks watching her face from under his shaggy eyebrows.

“It is barely possible,” she owned at length.  “But supposing they have reached Holmness, it can only be to starve.  Good Lord! they may be starving to death there at this moment!”

Mr. Hucks kept his composure.

“It’s plain to me you haven’t measured that gal,” he said slowly.  “Is this Holmness in sight from the farm—­whatever you call it—­where they were missed?”

“Right opposite the coast there.”

“And not more than three miles away?  Then you may take it she won’t have started without provisions.  It wouldn’t be her way.”

[Again, the reader perceives, he gave Tilda undeserved credit; but always in this world the Arthur Miles’s will be left out of account by men of business, to upset again and again their calculations.]

“So,” he continued, “there’s no need for you to be running and sending telegrams to folks there to chivvy ’em.  Take the next train home and pick up the credit yourself.”

“Mr. Hucks,” said Miss Sally after a pause, “you are a remarkable man.  I am half inclined to believe you; and if you should prove to be right, I shall not know how to repay you.”

“Well,” said Mr. Hucks, “it seems likely I’ve helped, after all.  I’m not pressing for payment; though, as between persons of business, I’m glad you mention it.”

“If these children are recovered, you shall name any price in reason.  But there is another matter in which you can help me, I hope.  I want admission to Glasson’s Orphanage.”

“The ’Oly Innocents?  It goes by nomination, and I’m not a subscriber,” said Mr. Hucks with a grin, which Miss Sally ignored.

“Will it be enough if I call and ask to be shown over the institution?”

“Quite enough—­to get the door slammed in your face.”

“Well, I mean to have a look inside, even though I get you to put me in a sack and lower me into the coal-cellar.”