"So you'll dispose of her, Jim; and I'll run back, for I've left the door open."
The bonnet went nodding away, and the burly Jim dragged Juliet along faster than she could walk, and almost as fast as she could run. She was soon tired and out of breath. Neither spoke.
They went along one road and turned down another, and crossed the Thames by a bridge, and passed through a street of shops, and then, by a dirty lane among gas-works, arrived at a place which Juliet had seen before.
"Why, it is Littlebourne station!" she exclaimed.
And there, on the platform where the sun was beating down with fierce heat, stood Mr. and Mrs. Webster. The big man took Juliet up to them and placed her in front of them, saying, "Here she is; I've done my part of the business, and I place her safely in your charge."
Mrs. Webster was looking at Juliet with pitying eyes; the vicar of Littlebourne appeared sterner than his wife.
"Very good," he said to Mrs. Bosher's brother; "we will take her in charge. It happens very fortunately that we are going to London to-day, and so can dispose of her. How much anxiety and trouble her bad conduct has caused! It was very clever of Mrs. Bosher to guess who the girl was."
"Yes, sir, so it was. When my sister came in last night to tell me how a young thing from Littlebourne had come to her house, having run away from home seemingly, I should never have seen my way to finding out the truth. But then women are quicker-witted than men, though they are not so steady-headed. And my sister says, 'She must have come across the fields somehow.' And I says, 'I met a slip of a girl in the wood, and made believe that I was going to shoot her.' And says Mrs. Bosher, 'It's the same girl, take my word for it,' says she. 'And, you, Jim,' she says, 'step over to the lock the first thing in the morning, and ask Mrs. Rowles if they have seen a girl coming through the fields in this direction.' Which I did."
To all this Juliet was listening eagerly.
"And two words settled it," said Mrs. Bosher's brother; "two words with Mrs. Rowles. 'Why,' says she, 'it must be our niece Juliet who ran away last night, and we have been in a state ever since.' And then she described her niece, and I saw plain enough that it was this identical girl. There came an old gentleman in a boat just then, and so I said good-morning and went to tell my sister what I had heard."