“I am quite sure that it was the coat which you wrapped round me in the boat,” she replied—“a dark-brown coat with a black velvet collar and the top button missing, it having been torn out by the roots.”
“The description is exact, even to the pulling off of the button,” he said, with a laugh, and then, becoming suddenly grave again, he asked, “But what are you going to do about these stones, which are certainly not mine, nor have I the remotest idea of where they came from. You will carry them back with you, of course?”
“Oh, will you not keep them?” she cried imploringly. “I am so tired of having to guard what is not my own, and they have cost me so much trouble and disappointment, that I should be only too thankful to be rid of them. Moreover, I am downright afraid for it to be known that I have such valuable things in my possession.”
Edgar Bradgate stiffened unconsciously, and his manner was suddenly cold and repellent when he replied: “I shall certainly not touch them. They came by accident into your possession, and you must keep them until time or chance reveals the rightful owner to you. There can scarcely be any danger to you from having them in your keeping, if no one knows of their existence.”
Bertha looked as she felt, utterly wretched, and as she thought of all that she had endured in her attempts to restore the stones to their rightful owner, the tears brimmed up in her eyes again, and it was only with great difficulty that she kept them from falling. It was silly to care so much, of course; but then she simply could not help it.
There was a long minute of strained silence which she was too miserable to break, then Edgar Bradgate spoke again, his tone being more masterful than she had heard it before.
“Mike Walford says that you are going back on the cars to Rownton to-night, and I shall go with you myself to see that no harm comes to you. And I shall go right through with you to Duck Flats; that is the very least that I can do for you after all the time and trouble you have spent in trying to restore to me what you supposed to be my own.”
“Pray, do not trouble,” cried Bertha, stung by what she deemed the disapproval of herself and her conduct expressed in his tone. “I can manage quite well, I assure you.”
“I do not doubt your power to take care of yourself, but all the same I am going, and I shall not leave you until I see you safe in the hands of your natural protectors,” he said, in that same tone of grave disapproval which had made her wince so badly only a few minutes before.
But at his mention of her natural protectors the comic side of the matter struck her, and she burst out laughing, then, seeing the look of offence on his face, made haste to explain her untimely merriment.