"Poor Mrs. Vand! poor Mrs. Vand!" The girl's eyes again filled with tears.
"We can't help her, Bella. I wish Timson could get hold of her and induce her to stand her trial. I don't think either judge or jury would be hard on her; more, I fancy that her brain must be turned with all this misery."
"And she has lost her husband, too," sighed Bella; "she loved him so. Oh, dear Cyril, what should I do if I lost you?"
Before Lister could reply with the usual lover-like attentions there was a noise in the road, and looking through the window they saw many people hurrying along. Dora came in at the moment from the other room, whither she always discreetly withdrew when not nursing Pence.
"It is only some policeman they are running after. He declares that Mrs. Vand is in the neighbourhood. If she is I hope she will escape."
"By Jove! I must go out and see," said Cyril, seizing his hat.
"I shall come also," cried Bella, and in a few minutes the two were on the road. But by this time the people were not tearing along as they had been, and one villager told Lister that it had been a false alarm.
"The old vixen won't come back to her first hole," said the villager with a coarse laugh, and Bella frowned at him for his inhumanity.
As there really was nothing to hurry for the lovers strolled easily along the road talking of their future. "Bella, you haven't many boxes?" asked Cyril.
"Only two. Why do you ask?"