‘Oh, don’t!’ said Jane; ‘how can you be so unkind? We AREN’T burglars, and we haven’t any gang, and we didn’t open your missionary-box. We opened our own once, but we didn’t have to use the money, so our consciences made us put it back and—DON’T! Oh, I wish you wouldn’t—’
Miss Selina had seized Jane and Miss Amelia captured Robert. The children found themselves held fast by strong, slim hands, pink at the wrists and white at the knuckles.
‘We’ve got YOU, at any rate,’ said Miss Amelia. ‘Selina, your captive is smaller than mine. You open the window at once and call “Murder!” as loud as you can.
Selina obeyed; but when she had opened the window, instead of calling ‘Murder!’ she called ‘Septimus!’ because at that very moment she saw her nephew coming in at the gate.
In another minute he had let himself in with his latch-key and had mounted the stairs. As he came into the room Jane and Robert each uttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden that the ladies leaped with surprise, and nearly let them go.
‘It’s our own clergyman,’ cried Jane.
‘Don’t you remember us?’ asked Robert. ‘You married our burglar for us—don’t you remember?’
‘I KNEW it was a gang,’ said Amelia. ‘Septimus, these abandoned children are members of a desperate burgling gang who are robbing the house. They have already forced the missionary-box and purloined its contents.’
The Reverend Septimus passed his hand wearily over his brow.
‘I feel a little faint,’ he said, ‘running upstairs so quickly.’