"I don't intend to," she answered. "And you be bound on much the same errand, though you'd deny it if your face could back up your tongue."
"Dan'l Leggo has a-been my partner in business for five years, Miss Sanders. Isn't it nat'ral enough I should want to visit and consult him?"
"Nothing more natural," answered the girl cheerfully. "I was just wonderin' where they'd hidden him: but since you know, my trouble's at an end. You can show me the way. Which is it, Mr. Geen—north, south, east, or west?"
Phoby understood that she was laughing at him. "Don't you think, Miss Sanders," he suggested, "that 'twas pretty rash of you to give folks a clue as you've a-done to-day, and everybody knowing that you've been asked in church with Dan'l?"
"I do," said she. "I've behaved foolish, Mr. Geen, and thank you for reminding me. He won't thank a second partner for putting him in a trap," she went on, speaking at a venture; but her words caught Phoby Geen like a whip across the face, and, seeing him blanch, she dropped a curtsey. "I'll be going home, Mr. Geen," she announced. "I might ha' walked farther without finding out so much as you've told me; and you may walk twenty miles farther without finding out half so much."
He glowered at her and let out a curse; but the girl was his match, though timmersome enough in an ordinary way.
"Iss, iss," she said scornful-like; "I know the kind of coward you are, Mr. Phoby Geen. But I bless this here corner of the road twice over; first because it has given me a look into your sneaking heart, and next because 'tis within earshot of Halsetown, where I've a brace of tall cousins living that would beat you to a jelly if you dared lift a hand against me. I'm turning back to ask one of them to see me home; and he'll not deny me, as he'll not be backward to pound every bone in your ill-shapen body if he hears what I've to tell."
Phoby Geen glowered at her for half a minute longer, and then snapped his fingers.
"As it happens," said he, "you're doing me a cruel injustice; but we needn't talk of that. A man o' my savings—though you've sneezed at 'em— doesn't want to be searching the country for two-hundred-and-fifty pound."
He swung on his heel and walked off towards St. Ives. Amelia Sanders watched him round the next bend, and turning, began to run homewards for dear life, when, just at the corner, she fell into the arms of Tummels.