“Very well, I’ll square you with her. I think I can undertake to do that without giving you away. If she’s a decent woman she’ll no doubt agree not to prosecute once she’s got the money back. I will give you my word not to go to the police about it, but, if you take my advice, you’ll make a clean breast of it to them as soon as you get on your feet again. Otherwise, you know where you’ll find yourself. However, that’s your affair. Anyway, I’ll see to the purse business for you, which is more than you deserve, you know!” If Fayre’s last words were harsh his smile was very friendly as he extended his hand in farewell. Weakness had always irritated and, at the same time, appealed to him and he had only just begun to understand how peculiarly helpless the class to which this man belonged must be. The tramp thrust a limp hand into his extended one. He was evidently struggling for expression. “Thank you, mister; I shan’t forget it,” was all he said, but Fayre knew he spoke the truth. He had reached the door when the man called him back. “I say, mister, I reckon you’d best take these towards that there half-crown. It’s all I got left.” He was holding out the small pile of coppers that had been on the table by his side. Fayre took them from him and gently laid them down again beside the folded red handkerchief. The man watched him and, as he did so, his eyes fell on a small object which lay among his pitiful possessions. “I’d rather you took it, mister,” he said half-heartedly. Then, as Fayre shook his head: “Thank you kindly, all the same. You were askin’ if there was anythin’, no matter how small, as I could remember. There’s that, if it’s any use to you. It ’ad gone clean out of my ’ead. It won’t ’elp you much, but if I’d remembered I’d ’a’ give it to you. By the gate of the farm, it was. I stepped on it in the dark goin’ in, when I was on my way to the barn.” He held out his hand and in the palm was lying the cap of a “Red Dwarf” stylographic pen. Chapter XVI As Fayre passed down the broad staircase of the Cottage Hospital he reviewed his conversation with the tramp and decided that, considering the little he had gained by it, he might as well have stayed by the comfortable fireside in the library. Cynthia’s “hunch” had not amounted to much, after all, and he was sorry, more on her account than his own, for he had not expected anything himself from the interview. It had, however, simplified matters, in so far as it had definitely wiped off the tramp from the possible list of suspects. He had a strong conviction that the man’s story was true.