d his face in the street.

At eleven o'clock next morning he rapped at the door of Tregenza's hovel,
which lay some way up the hill above the harbour, in a nexus of mean
alleys and at the back of a tenement known as Ugnot's. His knock appeared
to silence a hammering in the rear of the cottage. By and by the door
opened--but a very little way--and through the chink old Tregenza peered
out at him--gaunt, shaggy, grey of hair and of face, his beard and his
very eyebrows powdered with sawdust.

"Kindly welcome," said Tregenza, blinking against the light.

"You won't say that when I've done wi' you," said the Elder to himself.

III.

"Won't you step inside?" asked Tregenza.

"Yes," said the Elder, "I will. I've a-got something serious to talk
about."

The sight of Tregenza irritated him more than he had expected, and
irritated him the worse because the old man appeared neither confused with
shame nor contrite.

"I've a-got something serious to talk about," the Elder repeated in the
kitchen; "though, as between you and me, any talk couldn't well be
pleasant. No, I won't sit down--not in this house. 'Tis only a sense o'
duty brings me to-day, though I daresay you've wondered often enough why I
ha'n't been here before an' told you straight what I think o' you."

"No," said Tregenza simply, as the Elder paused for an answer.
"I ha'n't wondered at all. I knowed 'ee better."

"What's that you're sayin'?"

"I knowed 'ee better. First along--" the old man spoke as if with a
painful effort of memory--"first along, to be sure, I reckined you might
ha' come an' spoke a word o' comfort; not that speakin' comfort could ha'
done any good, an' so I excused 'ee."

"You excused me? Word of comfort! Word of comf--" The Elder gasped for
a moment, his mouth opening and shutting without sound. "An' what about
my seventy-five pounds?--all lost to me through your not keepin' up the
insurance!"

"Ay," assented old Tregenza. "Ay, to be sure. Terrible careless, that
was."

For a moment the Elder felt tempted to strike him. "Look here," he said,
tapping his stick sharply on the floor; "as it happens, I didn' come here
to lose my temper nor to talk about your conduct--leastways, not that part
of it. 'Tis about your granddaughter. She've been stealin' my wood."

"Liz?"

"Yes; I caught her in my yard at nine o'clock last night. No mistakin'
what she was after. There, in the dark--she was stealin' my wood."

"Wha