He turned as if to flee into the house. Then, as if headed off by the noise of hammering within, he faced about and made across the bridge for the quay-head and his favourite bollard. There, as a man in a dream, he found a seat, and vainly for ten minutes strove to collect and arrange his thoughts. Suspicion, fear, wild anger wove dances in his brain--witch-dances immingled with cursings upon the heads of Pamphlett and Policeman Rat-it-all. . . . Of a sudden he sat up and stiffened with a new fright. "By the manner of her conversation, that woman was makin' love to me!" Left to herself, and as Nicky-Nan passed out of sight around the corner beyond the bridge, Miss Charity Oliver warily opened her palm and examined the guinea. "By rights," she mused, "I ought to take this in to Mrs Penhaligon at once, and caution her about Alcibiades. . . . No, I won't, though. I'll call first and have it out with Mary-Martha. She thinks she knows everything, and she has a way of making others believe it. But she has proved herself a broken reed over this affair: and," said Miss Oliver to herself with decision, "I rather fancy I'll make Mary-Martha sensible of it." CHAPTER XXI. FAIRY GOLD. "So you see, Mary-Martha, that for once in a way you were wrong and I was right." "You're too fond of sweepin' statements, Charity Oliver. I doubt your first, and your second I not only doubt but deny. So far as I remember, I said the man was probably in German pay, while you insisted that he'd won the money in a lottery." "I didn't insist: I merely suggested. It was you who started to talk about German money: and I answered you that, even if the money _was_ German, there might be an innocent way of explaining it before you took upon yourself to warn the police." Mrs Polsue glanced at her friend sharply. "You seem to be gettin' very hot over it," was her comment. "Why, I can't think. You certainly wouldn't if you gave any thought to your appearance." "I'm not hot in the least," hotly protested Miss Oliver. "I'm simply proving to you that you've made a mistake: which you could never in your life bear to be told. The money is English gold, with King George the Something's head on it: and _that_ you can't deny, try as you may." "All the more reason why it shouldn't come through a German lottery," replied Mrs Polsue, examining the coin. "I tell you for the last time that I only threw lotteries out as a suggestion. There's many ways to come into a fortune besides lotteries. You can have it left to you by will, for instance--" "Dear, dear! . . . But never mind: go on. How one lives and learns!" "And the other day the papers were full of a man who came into tens of thousands through what they call a Derby sweep. I remember wondering how cleaning chimneys--even those long factory ones--could be so profitable in the north of England, until it turned out that a sweep was some kind of horse-race."