"I don't know, dear, quite what people think, only I have fancied lately that Mr. Brading does, and Jack has not been in to see me as he used to the first month I was there."
"Then it is this that has made you look so pale and anxious lately? I was sure that something must have happened. You must not stay there, of course. I shall begin to think, with Annie, that you ought never to have gone to that shop!"
"Oh, I like the work very well, and Mr. Brading—"
"Yes, yes, we know all about that," interrupted Molly impatiently. "But now you must leave, of course; you cannot stay there to be insulted."
"Nobody has insulted me, Molly; and as for leaving, I must stay now until this affair is cleared up. Why, if the railway were to bring us a fortune directly, I would go to Mr. Brading and say, 'Let me stay here until I can prove that I am innocent of this theft.' It would be the only way of clearing my character in the eyes of the world. I never thought of the value of this until lately, but I can see it is the only way for me, hard as it may be. But I say, we have forgotten this letter."
And Arthur was just turning to run across the road, when he came into contact with Mr. Andrews, very much as he had done the first time he met him.
"I beg your pardon, I am very sorry," said Arthur, when he could recover the power to speak.
"You are doing the steam-engine trick again," said the lawyer.
And then he saw Molly, and asked her why she allowed her brother to be out of her keeping, seeing he was such a danger to the public when left to himself?
"This is the second time he has nearly knocked me backwards," added the old gentleman.