"You see, sir," she pleaded, "it was so hard for him not to be able to do anything when my father was so ill and my mother worried and the bills piling up—they stopped our credit nearly everywhere—and the tax people—they were the worst of all."
"Yes, yes; I quite understand. And I've told them not to press the matter further. Flynn and Jackman, the two men you saw yesterday, are out for the minute; but when they come in they are to report to me. I don't suppose we can take your brother back; but I'll see what I can do for him elsewhere." He rose to end the interview, so that Jennie rose, too. "You can keep that money," he added, nodding toward her roll of bills. "You were not responsible, and there's no reason at all why you should pay."
When Jennie protested, he merely escorted her to the door, which he held open.
"No, don't thank me," he insisted. "Please! Just make your mind easy as to your brother. The matter shall not go any farther. I don't know what I can do for him as yet—the circumstances make it difficult; but I shall find something."
So, blinded with tears, Jennie made her way toward the lift, calling down on Bob's father as well as on his mother all the blessings she was able to invoke.
Late that afternoon, Teddy, on the floor of his hut, woke with a start from a doze. He hadn't meant to doze, but he had slept little on the preceding night, and was lulled, moreover, by a sense of his security. The day had not been as exciting as the day before. Nothing having happened during all those hours, he was growing convinced that nothing would. In its way, safety was becoming irksome. He began to ask himself whether the spirit of adventure didn't summon him to go forth as a tramp that night.
So he dozed—and so he waked, with a start. The start was possibly due to a consciousness even in his sleep that there were people in the road. He was frightened before he could put his eye again to the peephole. Luckily the pistol was at hand, and the other thing might now have to be done.
As a matter of fact it seemed likely. Two burly figures had already left the highway, Flynn tramping along the flicker of path, and Jackman picking his steps through the oozy mud a little to Flynn's right and a little behind him. There was no secrecy about their approach, and apparently no fear.
"They don't suspect that I've got a gun," Teddy commented to himself. "Lobley can't have told them."