it's a strange time and place you're talking of. I hope nothing'll come
to you in the way of mischance."

"Oh, it's nothing, nothing at all!" I hastened to say. "If you knew it
all, you'd see it's a very ordinary business that this man can't do
himself, being kept to his bed. But all the same, there's naught like
taking precautions beforehand, and so I'll tell you what we'll do. I
should be back in town soon after twelve, and I'll give a tap at your
window as I pass it, and then you'll know all's right."

That would be an easy enough thing to manage, for Maisie's room, where
she slept with a younger sister, was on the ground floor of her father's
house in a wing that butted on to the street, and I could knock at the
pane as I passed by. Yet still she seemed uneasy, and I hastened to say
what--not even then knowing her quite as well as I did later--I thought
would comfort her in any fears she had. "It's a very easy job, Maisie," I
said; "and the ten pounds'll go a long way in buying that furniture we're
always talking about."

She started worse than before when I said that and gripped the hand that
I had round her waist.

"Hughie!" she exclaimed. "He'll not be giving you ten pounds for a bit of
a ride like that! Oh, now I'm sure there's danger in it! What would a man
be paying ten pounds for to anybody just to take a message? Don't go,
Hughie! What do you know of yon man except that he's a stranger that
never speaks to a soul in the place, and wanders about like he was spying
things? And I would liefer go without chair or table, pot or pan, than
that you should be running risks in a lonesome place like that, and at
that time, with nobody near if you should be needing help. Don't go!"