Palmer, however, was determined to be honest. “The first thing of that sort I tried was at home. It was long ago, and I was only a kid of about ten or eleven. Mamma had lost some money――two sovereigns had been taken out of her purse, she said. I remembered seeing one of the servants, a girl called Jane, come out of mamma’s room, and I remembered that she had hurried past me in the passage. I was sure Jane had taken the money. There was a fuss made, but mamma didn’t want to call in the police or anything like that, though when papa laughed at her it only made her more sure than ever that she had been robbed. I waited till I saw Jane by herself, and then I said to her that perhaps mamma had dropped the money, and that it might have rolled under the fender in her room; but I had first looked under the fender to make sure there was nothing there. Jane was quite excited by the idea, and she ran upstairs, while I dawdled behind so as to give her plenty of time. When I came in she was standing in the middle of the floor, and she called out in a queer nervous kind of way, ‘You can look for yourself, Master Palmer; I won’t have anything to do with it; I won’t go near it.’ So I lifted up the fender, and there were the two sovereigns; and she was so stupid that she had actually laid one exactly on the top of the other. Then suddenly she began to cry. She put her arms round me and kissed me. I told her she must keep the money; that if she didn’t they would know she had stolen it. And in the end she confessed, and told me why she had taken it. It was for one of her brothers, who had got into trouble in some way, and she had intended to pay it back. I promised not to tell, and persuaded her at last to keep the two pounds. She left a little while afterwards, and I never saw her again. But she paid back the money. She sent mamma a postal order nearly a year later, and though they suspected it came from Jane, nobody was ever quite sure.” “Well, I’m glad you didn’t give the girl away,” said the doctor quietly. CHAPTER XXII FIRE! ‘The dogs they do bay, and the timbrels play, The spindle is now a-turning; The moon it is red, and the stars are fled, But all the sky is a-burning.’ ――_Ben Jonson._ When they reached home the birthday festivities were over. Aunt Caroline, who was alone, put down her book on their entrance, and sent Palmer to Canon Annesley’s study to tell him of the doctor’s arrival.