"We have telegraphed the Chatham police to arrest them, your lordship," said the officer.
A little later the station master's wife reappeared, with mollified visage, and reported that she had searched Hester with the greatest care and had found no sign of the purse nor anything that was in the least suspicious. Furthermore, the girl's frank, honest manner had convinced her that she was innocent.
"Of course she is!" cried Betty, taking the stranger's two hands in hers with quick sympathy. "I knew you didn't take it."
Hester's eyes filled with tears at this proof of confidence. She hesitated a moment as if scarcely able to speak, and then: "Thank you, thank you," she murmured.
It was now decided that the Bishop of Bunchester must return at once to Chatham for the purpose of identifying the suspected Germans. There was a train going back shortly.
"You will pardon me, my dear Miss Thompson, for not escorting you to London, as I promised Mr. Baxter, but you see the seriousness, the urgency——"
"Don't think of me. I'll get to London all right. Thank you for your kindness, and I do hope you'll find the purse." Betty gave the bishop her slim gloved hand, and as he looked into her lovely face, so genuinely sympathetic, he could not help reflecting that in his whole episcopal experience he had never met a more charming, a more fascinating young woman than Betty Thompson. Thus it came about that Betty, on a later train, made the last half hour of her journey to London without the bishop's companionship; but not alone, for she insisted that Hester go with her and sit beside her. To this the station authorities consented, after carefully recording the girl's name (she gave it as Jenny Regan of New York City) and other essential facts concerning her. The purse was certainly not on the girl's person nor in her luggage, and, all things considered, there was no justification for holding an American citizen against whom there appeared to be not a shadow of evidence.
So once more it happened that these two young women, so sharply contrasted in character and in physical beauty, sat together in a first-class railway carriage, quite by themselves this time. There was something about Hester Storm (alias Jenny Regan) that interested Betty strangely, something different. She felt that here was a girl worth studying, and she wished to make amends, if possible, for that humiliating search.
They talked of various things. Betty tactful, sympathetic, vaguely puzzled. Hester equally tactful, equally sympathetic and keenly on her guard, for the truth is that the Storm girl's good resolutions had not been proof against an untoward combination of circumstances; and when the Bishop of Bunchester was rudely tumbled against her, she had yielded to temptation, and with one swift, skillful movement had withdrawn the purse from the episcopal pocket; in other words, Hester Storm had stolen the five thousand pounds!