Chapter XV

A very few minutes later Dick rode through the gate followed by Jacintha, who raised an arm as she turned to the right, pedalled up the slight hill, and soon disappeared as she began to descend on the other side. Rising to my feet I had waved my arm in return, and I was strolling about the grass beside the road, already impatient to see Dick and Jacintha returning and to learn the full extent of my wealth, when I heard a motor-car panting along the road.

A glance showed that it was driven by the man who had accompanied Jacintha that morning she spied me in the corn-field, and a few moments later he steered the car into his gate. It seemed a long time before I saw the head of Dick and then of his sister appear above the crest of the hill. Dick, in his eagerness to reach me, pedalled all the way down.

'I say, Everard,' he exclaimed as soon as he reached me, 'how much do you think?'

'Did you get the twenty-five shillings?' I asked.

'Two pounds——' began Jacintha, dismounting from her bicycle.

'Let me tell him,' cried Dick. 'Two pounds three and sixpence,' he added with an air of triumph.

'I am most awfully obliged to you,' I said, as he took a purse from his jacket pocket.

'Not so bad,' he continued, 'is it? You see I told old Foster he must give a tip-top price, and of course he knows me. At first, I thought he was not going to buy the thing at all; he said he didn't know whether my uncle would like it, and all that.'

'And he said we ought to have bills printed to say it was found,' added Jacintha.

'But I talked him out of that,' said Dick, 'and here is the money,' he continued, counting out the two sovereigns, a half-crown and a shilling.

'Mind you don't lose any of it,' suggested Jacintha.

'No fear,' I answered.

'I say, where are you going to sleep to-night?' asked Dick.

'Oh, well,' I replied, and I am afraid that my newly acquired wealth made me a little proud, 'I dare say I can find an hotel in Hazleton.'

'Do you think they will take you in?' said Dick.

'I wonder whether we shall see you in London,' cried Jacintha, 'because we are going home next week.'

'And I say, Everard,' said her brother, 'take my word for it, I should not be a scrap surprised if Captain Knowlton was rescued after all.'

'Dick,' suggested Jacintha, 'don't you think we ought to go in to tea?'

'Perhaps we ought,' he admitted. 'Well, good-bye,' he added, and with that he held out his hand. When I shook Jacintha's a moment afterwards, I wished once again that my own hands were cleaner.

'Good-bye,' she cried. 'I am glad the locket was not mine,' and then they both re-mounted their bicycles, rode up the hill, waved their hands once more, and disappeared from my sight.

In spite of the possession of the money for the locket, a sense of depression fell upon me. I had grown quickly friendly with the pair, and they seemed to bring me back to the life which I felt more acutely than before I had lost for ever.

(Continued on page 134.)