"Yes--Jessica!" retorted Miss Lester, her jewels flashing in a chance ray of sunlight which had found its way through the dingy court. "Where is she?"
"She is not at home," said Mr. Wilfer. "She and Martha 'ave gone out for the day to Greenwich. If you'd wrote a-sayin' you was goin' to call I'd have made 'em stay till you came."
Miss Lester looked at him keenly.
"If you don't believe me," said Wilfer, "go upstairs and look at her room."
Ada ran past him up the stairs, and quickly returned.
"It's locked," she said.
"Of course; she's quite the lady--keeps the keys 'erself," sneered Johann. "Look 'ere, 'ere's her hat and coat; there's one of 'er boots, so she must be comin' back afore long."
Miss Lester appeared convinced. She breathed more freely, as if a weight had been taken off her mind.
"Here," she said, putting some gold coins in his hand, "is something to make up for my troubling you. But I was real anxious to know if everything was right with the gal."
Wilfer--debauched and demoralised by drink--was disposed to look at the worst side of things; and from this point of view thought she meant the reverse of what she said.