“I’m sure I don’t know, dear. These men are so exceedingly reticent, it is impossible to tell what they do know,” answered the elder lady.
Nell watched her and gathered from her manner that Hemming had told her nothing disquieting. For Miss Bostal’s whole attention was devoted, at that moment, to measuring out the smallest possible quantity of tea which could be made to supply two persons.
“And besides,” went on Miss Bostal, when she had shut up the tea-caddy, “what could Stickels have to tell him? And what trust could be put in Stickels’s stories?”
Nell looked at her with wide eyes of wonder and terror.
“Didn’t I tell you,” she said, in a husky whisper, “that Jem told me he had seen—the thief—with his own eyes? He told me he could give proofs—proofs!”
“Well, well, my dear,” returned the elder lady, composedly, as she put her little brown teapot tenderly on the stove to draw, “what if he did? My own idea is that Stickels made up a story in order to get you to talk to him; for it’s evident the poor lad is crazy about you.”
Nell made a gesture of disgust.
“Ah, but you shouldn’t treat him so hardly; it makes him desperate.”
Nell rose from her chair, and came close to the lady’s side.
“Miss Theodora,” she whispered, with a face full of fear, “it was not to get an excuse to talk to me that Jem said—what he did. He told me—he advised me to confide in you—to tell you what he told me, and—everything!”