“Well, I heard it took the form of guineas, Mr Nanjivell.  But of course I don’t wish to be inquisitive.”

“That devil Pamphlett has been talkin’,” muttered Nicky-Nan to himself.

“I only suggest,” Miss Oliver went on, “that if ’twas known—­I don’t seek to know the amount:  but if I had your authority to say that ’twas all in good coin of this realm—­with my opportunities I might hush up half this silly talk about your being a spy and in German pay—­”

“What? . . .  ME, a German spy?” The words seemed fairly to strangle him.

“It’s a positive fact, I assure you.  I mean it’s a positive fact somebody has been putting that story about.”

“If I knawed the critter, male or female—­” Nicky-Nan gripped his stick.

Miss Oliver could not help admiring his demeanour, his manly indignation.  The man had fine features, too—­a touch of ancestry.  She grew bolder.

“Well, I rather think I do know the creature, as you put it-though I am not going to tell you,” she added almost archly.  Then, of a sudden, “Has Constable Rat-it-all been paying you any attention lately?”

“Well . . .  I’ll be danged!”

Miss Oliver laughed pleasantly.  “The fact is, Mr Nanjivell, you want a woman’s wit to warn you, as every man does in your position.  And just now it took me of a sudden, happening upon you in this way and knowing how you were surrounded by evil tongues, that I’d cast prudence to the winds and speak to you openly for your good, as a neighbour.  You don’t think the worse of me, I hope?”

“Why, no, Miss Oliver.  Contrariwise I ought to be—­if you hadn’ taken me so sudden!” he concluded lamely.

“We’ll say no more about that.  All I suggest is that, until you find some one worthier of your confidence, if you care to count on me as an old friend and neighbour—­”

“Good Lord!” Nicky-Nan cast a hand to his brow.  “You’ll excuse my manners, Miss—­but if you’ll let me go off an’ think it over—­”

He turned as if to flee into the house.  Then, as if headed off by the noise of hammering within, he faced about and made across the bridge for the quay-head and his favourite bollard.  There, as a man in a dream, he found a seat, and vainly for ten minutes strove to collect and arrange his thoughts.  Suspicion, fear, wild anger wove dances in his brain—­witch-dances immingled with cursings upon the heads of Pamphlett and Policeman Rat-it-all. . . .  Of a sudden he sat up and stiffened with a new fright.

“By the manner of her conversation, that woman was makin’ love to me!”

Left to herself, and as Nicky-Nan passed out of sight around the corner beyond the bridge, Miss Charity Oliver warily opened her palm and examined the guinea.

“By rights,” she mused, “I ought to take this in to Mrs Penhaligon at once, and caution her about Alcibiades. . . .  No, I won’t, though.  I’ll call first and have it out with Mary-Martha.  She thinks she knows everything, and she has a way of making others believe it.  But she has proved herself a broken reed over this affair:  and,” said Miss Oliver to herself with decision, “I rather fancy I’ll make Mary-Martha sensible of it.”