had then uttered a short string of them, had seized his cap and
disappeared.

Frank, too, was even more heavy and depressed than usual. The last
shreds of romance were gone from his adventure long ago, and yet his
obstinacy held firm. But he found he could not talk much. He watched
Gertie listlessly as she, listless too, began to spread out nondescript
garments to make a bed in the corner. He hardly spoke to her, nor she to
him.

He was beginning to feel sleepy, when he heard rather hurried steps, as
of one trying to run on tiptoe, coming up the lane, and an instant later
in popped the Major.

"Put out that damned light!" he whispered sharply.

The candle end went out with the swiftness of thought.

"What's up?" Frank roused himself to ask. There had been a strenuous
look about the face seen an instant before that interested him.

There was dead silence. Gertie seemed frozen into motionlessness in her
corner, almost as if she had had experience of this kind of thing
before. Frank listened with all his ears; it was useless to stare into
the dark: here in this barn the blackness was complete.

At first there was no sound at all, except a very soft occasional scrape
of a boot-nail that betokened that the Major was seeking cover
somewhere. Then, so suddenly that he started all over, Frank felt a hand
on his arm and smelt a tobacco-laden breath. (Alas! there had been no
drink to-night.)

"See here, Frankie, my boy.... I ... I've got the thing on me.... What
shall I do with it?... It's no good chucking it away: they'd find it."

"Got what?" whispered Frank.

"There was a kid coming along ... she had a tin of something ... I don't
even know what it is.... And ... and she screamed out and someone ran
out. But they couldn't spot me; it was too dark."

"Hush!" whispered Frank sharply, and the hand tightened on his arm. But
it was only a rat somewhere in the roof.

"Well?" he said.

"Frankie ... I suppose you wouldn't take it from me ... and ... and be
off somewhere. We could meet again later.... I ... I'm afraid someone
may have spotted us coming through the village earlier. They'll ...
they'll search, I expect."

"You can do your own dirty work," whispered Frank earnestly through the
darkness.

"Frankie, my boy ... don't be hard on a poor devil.... I ... I can't
leave Gertie."

"Well, hide it somewhere."

"No good--they'd ... Good God--!"

The voice was stricken into silence once more, as a light, hardl