“Some name!” murmured Jennie.
“Their family name is Pike,” said Ruth, still seriously. “I do not think the man can know how this aunt treats little Bella. There’s Tom!”
The young captain appeared behind the enraged housekeeper at the open door of the loft. One glance told him what Bella had done. He placed a firm hand on Miss Timmins’ shoulder.
“If you had made that girl fall you would go to jail,” Tom said sternly. “You may go, yet. I will try to put you there. And in any case you shall not have the management of the child any longer. Go back to the house!”
For once the housekeeper was awed. Especially when Henri Marchand, too, appeared in the loft.
“Madame will return to the house. We shall see what can be done for the child. Gare!”
Perhaps the woman was a little frightened at last by what she had done—or what she might have done. At least, she descended the ladders to the ground floor without argument.
The two young men planned swiftly how to rescue the sobbing child. But when Tom first spoke to Bella, proposing to help her down, she looked over the edge of the roof at him and shook her head.
“No! I ain’t coming down,” she announced emphatically. “Aunt Suse will near about skin me alive.”
“She shall not touch you,” Tom promised.