making it worse. The police in possession, and a runaway convict
goodness knows where!"

"I agree," said Theodore. "It _is_ unpleasant. I wonder where the beggar
can be?"

"It's no use asking me," said Moya; for the note of interrogation had
been in his voice.

"You didn't see any suspicious-looking loafers, I suppose? I mean this
afternoon."

"How could I? I was with Pelham all the time."

She would never marry him, never! That was no reason why she should give
him away. She would never marry a man with discreditable secrets which
she might not share, not because they were discreditable, but for the
other reason. Yet she must be a humbug for his sake! Moya felt a
well-known eye upon her, felt her face bathed in fire; luckily her
explanation itself might account for that, and she had the wit to see
this in time.

"I mean," she stammered, "one was on the verandah all the afternoon.
Nobody could have come without our seeing them."

"I don't know about that. Love is blind!"

His tone carried relief to Moya. The irony was characteristic, normal.
It struck her as incompatible with any strong suspicion. But the ground
was dangerous all the same.

"If we are made uncomfortable," said Moya, shifting it, "what must it be
for Pelham! It's on his account I feel so miserable."

And she spoke the truth; indeed, a truism; but she would be still more
miserable if she married him. She would never marry a man----the
haunting sentence went for once unfinished. Theodore was favouring her
with a peculiar scrutiny whose import she knew of old. She was on her
guard just in time.

"You haven't heard the latest development, I suppose?"

"Has there been something fresh since I came away?"

And even Theodore did not know that she was holding her breath.

"Something as fresh as paint," said he dryly. "Rigden thinks he's got on
the fellow's tracks."

Moya had braced herself against any sudden betrayal of alarm; she was
less proof against the inrush of a new contempt for her lover.

"You don't mean it!" she cried with indignation.

"Why not?" asked Theodore blandly.

"Oh, nothing. Only it's pretty disgraceful--on the part of the police, I
mean--that they should spend hours looking for what a mere amateur finds
at once!"

The brother peeped at her from lowered lids. He was admiring her
resource.

"I agree," he said slowly, "_if_--our friend is right."

"Whom do you mean?" inquired Moya, up in arms on the instant.

"Rig