"You may go now, Mrs. Redmain," said her husband when Mary entered. "Get out, Mewks," he added; and both lady and valet disappeared. "So!" he said, with a grin of pleasure. "Here's a pretty business! You may sit down, though. You haven't got the ring in that bag there?" "Nor anywhere else, sir," answered Mary. "Shall I shake it out on the floor?--or on the sofa would be better." "Nonsense! You don't imagine me such a fool as to suppose, if you had it, you would carry it about in your bag!" "You don't believe I have it, sir--do you?" she returned, in a tone of appeal. "How am I to know what to believe? There is something dubious about you--you have yourself all but admitted that: how am I to know that robbery mayn't be your little dodge? All that rubbish you talked down at Lychford about honesty, and taking no wages, and loving your mistress, and all that rot, looks devilish like something off the square! That ring, now, the stone of it alone, is worth seven hundred pounds: one might let pretty good wages go for a chance like that!" Mary looked him in the face, and made him no answer. He spied a danger: if he irritated her, he would get nothing out of her! "My girl," he said, changing his tone, "I believe you know nothing about the ring; I was only teasing you." Mary could not help a sigh of relief, and her eyes fell, for she felt them beginning to fill. She could not have believed that the judgment of such a man would ever be of consequence to her. But the unity of the race is a thing that can not be broken. Now, although Mr. Redmain was by no means so sure of her innocence as he had pretended, he did at least wish and hope to find her innocent--from no regard for her, but because there was another he would be more glad to find concerned in the ugly affair. "Mrs. Redmain," he went on, "would have me hand you over to the police; but I won't. You may go home when you please, and you need fear nothing." He had the house where the Helmers lodged already watched, and knew this much, that some one was ill there, and that the doctor came almost every day. "I certainly shall fear nothing," said Mary, not quite trusting him; "my fate is in God's hands." "We know all about that," said Mr. Redmain; "I'm up to most dodges. But look here, my girl: it wouldn't be prudent in me, lest there should be such a personage as you have just mentioned, to be hard upon any of my fellow-creatures: I am one day pretty sure to be in misfortune myself. You mightn't think it of me, but I am not quite a heathen, and do reflect a little at times. You may be as wicked as myself, or as good as Joseph, for anything I know or care, for, as I say, it ain't my business to judge you. Tell me now what you are up to, and I will make it the better for you." Mary had been trying hard to get at what he was "up to," but found herself quite bewildered. "I am sorry, sir," she faltered, "but I haven't the slightest idea what you mean."