"Listen to me, Mr. Meads," she called. "I've not got your money, and I don't know anything about it."
"You told me it 'ud be taken, and you've gone and got it," yelled Isaac.
"It's a lie, Mr. Meads. I've not touched one farthing of your money," Mary answered. "But if it's gone, you'd best not waste your time here. Why don't you go straight to the police-station? Every minute you put off, the less likely you are to get your money back."
"Police-station!" Isaac said helplessly, and he ceased his battering.
"Yes, the police-station, down to the left, near the other end of the road. You'd best bring a policeman back with you, and see if he can find out anything. I wouldn't lose a minute if I was you. The thief'll get right off, if you do."
She heard the old man totter away,—how feebly she did not know. She heard him go out of the house, and shut the door behind him. But long as she waited and listened, she did not hear him return; and at length she came to the conclusion that he and the policeman must have started in pursuit of the thief, deferring their examination of the bedroom till later. It was a very simple thought of Mary's—helped on, perhaps, by her dread of meeting him, and her fear of leaving Daisy. She did once or twice wonder whether she was quite right not to go out and look after him. Yet, for Daisy's sake, how could she?
Mary would not have had far to go. The shock of his loss was telling rapidly on the old man, and the brief strength of passion was fast dying away. He only managed to get as far as the garden-path. There he fell to the ground, having no power to rise again; and there, when morning dawned, he was found, lying helplessly, damp with the night dews. When they carried him indoors, and laid him on his bed, he only stared about muttering monotonously, "Gone! gone! gone!" like the knell of a passing bell.
[CHAPTER XIV.]
A MOTHER'S WORK.
"THINGS are ever so much better than they used to be. Why, it feels like a different house," Janet Humphrey said to Mrs. Simmons, on the afternoon of the same Saturday when old Isaac Meads found his treasure to have vanished. The Humphreys had just been enjoying a good hot dinner, with "father" of course to share it, and Mrs. Simmons had dropped in afterwards, to find Janet, tidy and smiling, with the baby in her arms.