admitted the other.

"Did you know that I was there?"

Mr. Tredgold gazed at her in feeble indignation, but the uselessness of
denial made truth easier. "Yes," he said, slowly.

"Thank you," said the girl, scornfully. "You thought that I shouldn't
like to be caught up there, and that it would be an amusing and
gentlemanly thing to do to keep me a prisoner. I quite understand. My
estimate of you has turned out to be correct."

"It was quite an accident," urged Mr. Tredgold, humbly. "I've had a very
worrying day seeing them off at Biddlecombe, and when I heard you up in
the nest I succumbed to sudden temptation. If I had stopped to think--if
I had had the faintest idea that you would catechise me in the way you
have done--I shouldn't have dreamt of doing such a thing."

Miss Drewitt, who was standing with her hand on the latch of the door
leading upstairs, as a hint that the interview was at an end, could not
restrain her indignation.

"Your father and his friends have gone off to secure my uncle's treasure,
and you come straight on here," she cried, hotly. "Do you think that
there is no end to his good-nature?"

"Treasure?" said the other, with a laugh. "Why, that idea was knocked on
the head when the map was burnt. Even Chalk wouldn't go on a roving
commission to dig over all the islands in the South Pacific."