Willie spoke first. Puffing at the pipe he had just lit, he glanced up at Otto.
“Well, and what is your opinion of our fair friend now?” he asked.
“My opinion is that she is a thief, and a very daring, if not a very skillful, one. Those earrings were pearls and rubies, real ones, very old-fashioned, but worth something.”
“And you don’t think they may have been given to her?”
“My dear fellow, look at the story. Is there anything to blush about in the fact of receiving a present from an old man and his old daughter? Yet, undoubtedly, she did blush. Then look at the improbability of the thing. The Bostals are as poor as church mice. Would they have such a thing as these earrings? Well, perhaps they might have. But would they give them away? The old man might, infatuated with her pretty face, but not the starchy, elderly-young lady.”
“You had better not tell Clifford what you think.”
“I don’t mean to. But I mean to try to save him from this entanglement; and in order to carry out my plan, he must not suspect that I have one. He won’t say much about her, you bet; he will be afraid of our raillery. And we shall say no more than he does. And, of course, if he asks me my opinion about the earrings, I shall say they were worthless. See?”
Willie nodded. He no longer bore Clifford malice for cutting him out; he was only too thankful that he had been himself saved from a deep tumble into the same pitfall.
It was about a fortnight after the return to town of the three friends that there drove up to the Blue Lion, one bitter evening, a hired dog-cart from Stroan, in which sat a gentleman who told the landlord that he was on the way to Courtstairs, but that he found the weather too severe, and should be glad to put up at the inn until the following morning. He was a pleasant, talkative young fellow, and George Claris, who had been growing rather moody and reserved of late, thawed under the influence of the stranger’s genial manners, and passed the evening smoking and talking by the fire in the little bar-parlor. Only once in the course of the evening did he catch sight of Nell.
She was passing through the passage on her way upstairs, and she appeared at the door of the room for an instant only, to give a message to her uncle. As she stood there, the young man took occasion to mention that he must try to push on to-morrow, as he was carrying property of some value for a firm in whose employment he was, which was expected by another firm to whom he was commissioned.