“Is she asleep?”

“She’s resting.  She may be asleep.”

“Did ye tell her ye hadn’t found her money?”

“Yes.”

“What did she say?”

“She didn’t say anything.”

“It might be municipal money, for all she seems to care!” remarked Thomas Batchgrew, with a short, bitter grin.  “Well, I’ll be moving to th’ police-station.  I’ve never come across aught like this before, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.”

Rachel slipped out of the door into the hall.

“Please wait a moment, Mr. Batchgrew,” she whispered timidly.

“What for?”

“Till I’ve told Mrs. Maldon.”

“But if her’s asleep?”

“I must waken her.  I couldn’t think of letting you go to the police-station without letting her know—­after what she said this morning.”

Rachel waited.  Mr. Batchgrew glanced aside.

“Here!  Come here!” said Mr. Batchgrew in a different tone.  The fact was that, put to the proof, he dared not, for all his autocratic habit, openly disobey the injunction of the benignant, indifferent, helpless Mrs. Maldon.  “Come here!” he repeated coarsely.  Rachel obeyed, shamefaced despite herself.  Batchgrew shut the door.  “Now,” he said grimly, “what’s your secret?  Out with it.  I know you and her’s got a secret.  What is it?”

Rachel sat down on the sofa, hid her face in her hands, and startled both men by a sob.  She wept with violence.  And then through her tears, and half looking up, she cried out passionately:  “It’s all your fault.  Why did you leave the money in the house at all?  You know you’d no right to do it, Mr. Batchgrew!”

The councillor was shaken out of his dignity by the incredible impudence of this indictment from a chit like Rachel.  Similar experiences, however, had happened to him before; for, though as a rule people most curiously conspired with him to keep up the fiction that he was sacred, at rare intervals somebody’s self-control would break down, and bitter, inconvenient home truths would resound in the ear of Thomas Batchgrew.  But he would recover himself in a few moments, and usually some diversion would occur to save him—­he was nearly always lucky.  A diversion occurred now, of the least expected kind.  The cajoling tones of Mrs. Tams were heard on the staircase.

“Nay, ma’am!  Nay, ma’am!  This’ll never do.  Must I go on my bended knees to ye?”

And then the firm but soft voice of Mrs. Maldon—­

“I must speak to Mr. Batchgrew.  I must have Mr. Batchgrew here at once.  Didn’t you hear me call and call to you?”

“That I didn’t, ma’am!  I was beating the feather bed in the back bedroom.  Nay, not a step lower do you go, ma’am, not if I lose me job for it.”