“Scarce midnight yet.  I reckoned maybe you might be sittin’ up, frettin’ over this—­’Twas the child here, though, that found it out and insisted on bringing me.”

“After we’d locked up,” broke in Fancy, “and just as I was packin’ Dad off to bed, it came into my head to ask him—­’I suppose you don’t know,’ said I, ‘of anyone’s havin’ been to master’s safe without my bein’ told?’ He thought a bit, and ‘No,’ says he; ’nobody ‘cept myself, an’ that but once. ‘You?’ says I, ‘and whoever sent you there?’ ‘Why, the master hisself,’ says Dad.—­Who else?’ ‘But what for?’ I asks, feelin’ as you might have knocked me down with a feather.  ‘I meant to ha’ told you,’ says Dad, ’but it slipped my mind.  ’Twas one afternoon, when you was out on your walk.  I heard Master’s stick tap on the plankin’ overhead so I went up, thinkin’ as he might be wantin’ his tea in a hurry.  He told me to open the safe an’ take out a packet o’ papers from the top shelf; which I did.’  ‘What papers?’ said I ‘How should I know?’ says Dad:  ’I don’t meddle with his business—­I’ve seen too much of it in my life.  I didn’ even glance at ’em, but locked the safe again, an’ put ’em where he told me—­which was in the japanned box by his chair!’ ‘Why,’ says I,’ that’s his Insurance Box as he called it—­the same as I handed to Mr Benny only yesterday, to take away and sort through!’ . . .  After that, as you may guess, I was like a mad person till we’d taken down the bolts again and I’d run to Mr Benny’s.”

“Ay,” chimed in Mr Benny, “I was upstairs and half-undressed:  but she had me dressed again an’ down as if ’twas a matter of life and death. . . .  And when we got out the box, there the papers were, sure enough.  After that—­for I saw their value to you—­no one with a human heart could help running along with her, to bear the news. . . .  So here we are.”

“‘Bias!” called Cai softly.  “Didn’ I hear ’Bias’s voice below there, a while since?”

“Ay, here I be.”—­It was ’Bias’s turn to step out from the shadow of his doorway into the broad moonlight.  “And glad enough to hear this news.”

“Would ye do me a favour? . . .  Dressed, are you?”

“Ay—­been sittin’ up latish to-night.”

“Well, I’m not azackly in a condition to step down—­not for a minute or two; and I doubt Mrs Bowldler, if I called her, wouldn’ be in no condition either. . . .  ’Twould be friendly of you to ask Mr Benny in and offer him a drink; and as for missy—­”

“No thank ‘ee, Cap’n,” interposed Mr Benny.  “Bringin’ you this peace o’ mind has been cordial enough for me—­and for the child too, I reckon, Good-night, gentlemen!”

“Cap’n Hunken,” said Fancy, “will you take the papers up to him?  Then we’ll go.”

“May I bring the papers to ’ee?” asked ’Bias, lifting his face to the window.

“Ay, do—­if they won’t come in. . . .  I’ll step down and unbar the door.”

He lit a candle and hurried downstairs, his heart in his mouth.  By the time he had unbarred and opened, Mr Benny and Fancy had taken their departure; but their “good-nights” rang back to him, up the moonlit road, and his friend stood on the threshold.