Mrs. Westmacott produced a large registered envelope from beneath the sheets and tossed it over to the old seaman.
“That excuse won't do. There are your pension papers. Just see if they are right.”
He broke the seal, and out tumbled the very papers which he had made over to McAdam two days before.
“But what am I to do with these now?” he cried in bewilderment.
“You will put them in a safe place, or get a friend to do so, and, if you do your duty, you will go to your wife and beg her pardon for having even for an instant thought of leaving her.”
The Admiral passed his hand over his rugged forehead. “This is very good of you, ma'am,” said he, “very good and kind, and I know that you are a staunch friend, but for all that these papers mean money, and though we may have been in broken water lately, we are not quite in such straits as to have to signal to our friends. When we do, ma'am, there's no one we would look to sooner than to you.”
“Don't be ridiculous!” said the widow. “You know nothing whatever about it, and yet you stand there laying down the law. I'll have my way in the matter, and you shall take the papers, for it is no favor that I am doing you, but simply a restoration of stolen property.”
“How's that, ma'am?”
“I am just going to explain, though you might take a lady's word for it without asking any questions. Now, what I am going to say is just between you four, and must go no farther. I have my own reasons for wishing to keep it from the police. Who do you think it was who struck me last night, Admiral?”
“Some villain, ma'am. I don't know his name.”