‘I hope last night’s business has not worried you, love,’ she said tenderly, making some excuse for carrying him his breakfast-cup with her own hands. ‘The diamonds are safe, and no doubt the man will be properly punished for his audacity.’ Churchill had told her all about the attempted robbery, in his clear, passionless way, but not a word of that interview in the study, between gentleman and vagabond. Madge, merciful to all innocent sufferers, had no sentimental compassion for this frustrated burglar, but desired that he should be duly punished for his crime. ‘I am not particularly worried, dear. It was rather an unpleasant ending to a pleasant evening, that is all.’ They were still seated at the breakfast-table, and Sir Lewis Dallas was still listening with rapt attention to Viola’s account of her feelings at the sight of the thief, when the butler, who had left the room a few minutes before, in compliance with a whispered request from his subordinate, re-entered, solemn of aspect, and full of that self-importance common to the craft. ‘The man has been taken again, sir, and is in the village lock-up,’ he announced to his master. Churchill rose hastily. ‘Taken again! What do you mean? I left him locked up in my study at two o’clock this morning.’ ‘Yes, sir, but he unfastened the shutters and got out of the window, and would have got clean off, I dare say, if Tyrrel, the gamekeeper, and his son hadn’t been about with a couple of dogs, on the look-out for poachers. The dogs smelt him out just as he was getting over the fence in the pine wood, and the Tyrrels collared him, and took him off to the lock-up then and there. He fought hard, Tyrrel says, and would have been almost a match for the two of ’em if it hadn’t been for the dogs. They turned the scale,’ concluded the butler, grandly. ‘Imagine the fellow so nearly getting off!’ exclaimed Sir Lewis. ‘I wonder it didn’t strike you that he would get out at the window, Penwyn. You locked the door, and thought you had him safe. Something like the painter fellow, who went in for the feline species, and cut two holes in his studio door, a big one for his cat, and a little one for her kitten, forgetting that the little cat could have got through the big cat’s door. That’s the way with you clever men, you’re seldom up to trap in trifles.’ ‘Rather stupid of me, I confess,’ said Churchill, ‘but I suppose I was a little obfuscated by the whole business. One hasn’t a burglar on one’s hands every night in the week. However,’ he added, slowly, ‘he’s safe in the lock-up; that’s the grand point, and I shall have the pleasure of assisting at his official examination at twelve o’clock.’ ‘Are the petty sessions on to-day?’ asked Sir Lewis, warmly interested. ‘How jolly!’ ‘You don’t mean to say that you take any interest in that sort of twaddle?’ said Churchill.