Mr. Bradshaw looked as if this did not please him particularly.  If he was the object of her thoughts she would not avoid him, surely.

“Have you kept your eye on her steadily?”

“I don’t believe there is an hour we can’t account for,—­Kitty and I between us.”

“Are you sure you can depend on Kitty?”

["Depind on Kitty, is it?  Oh, an’ to be sure ye can depind on Kitty to kape watch at the stove-pipe hole, an’ to tell all y’r plottin’s an’ contrivin’s to them that’ll get the cheese out o’ y’r mousetrap for ye before ye catch any poor cratur in it.”  This was the inaudible comment of the unseen third party.]

“Of course I can depend on her as far as I trust her.  All she knows is that she must look out for the girl to see that she does not run away or do herself a mischief.  The Biddies don’t know much, but they know enough to keep a watch on the—­”

“Chickens.”  Mr. Bradshaw playfully finished the sentence for Miss Cynthia.

["An’ on the foxes, an’ the cats, an’ the wazels, an’ the hen-hahks, an’ ahl the other bastes,” added the invisible witness, in unheard soliloquy.]

“I ain’t sure whether she’s quite as stupid as she looks,” said the suspicious young lawyer.  “There’s a little cunning twinkle in her eye sometimes that makes me think she might be up to a trick on occasion.  Does she ever listen about to hear what people are saying?”

“Don’t trouble yourself about Kitty Fagan,’ for pity’s sake, Mr. Bradshaw.  The Biddies are all alike, and they’re all as stupid as owls, except when you tell ’em just what to do, and how to do it.  A pack of priest-ridden fools!”

The hot Celtic blood in Kitty Fagan’s heart gave a leap.  The stout muscles gave an involuntary jerk.  The substantial frame felt the thrill all through, and the rickety stool on which she was standing creaked sharply under its burden.

Murray Bradshaw started.  He got up and opened softly all the doors leading from the room, one after another, and looked out.

“I thought I heard a noise as if somebody was moving, Cynthia.  It’s just as well to keep our own matters to ourselves.”

“If you wait till this old house keeps still, Mr. Bradshaw, you might as well wait till the river has run by.  It’s as full of rats and mice as an old cheese is of mites.  There’s a hundred old rats in this house, and that’s what you hear.”

["An’ one old cat; that’s what I hear.”  Third party.]

“I told you, Cynthia, I must be off on this business to-morrow.  I want to know that everything is safe before I go.  And, besides, I have got something to say to you that’s important, very important, mind you.”

He got up once more and opened every door softly and looked out.  He fixed his eye suspiciously on a large sofa at the other side of the room, and went, looking half ashamed of his extreme precaution, and peeped under it, to see if there was any one hidden thereto listen.  Then he came back and drew his chair close up to the table at which Miss Badlam had seated herself.  The conversation which followed was in a low tone, and a portion of it must be given in another place in the words of the third party.  The beginning of it we are able to supply in this connection.