"News? What news?" she exclaimed. "I've only just come in. Has anything happened?"
She glanced at Harding where he stood in the doorway.
"To Mr. Eustace? Nothing has happened to Mr. Eustace, has there?" she added, as she leaned towards Allnut.
"Well, I don't know," he replied in an uncertain voice. "It affects him more or less, I suppose, seeing he is the manager. The bank has been robbed, you know."
It was well Brennan was at the horse's head, for the shriek with which Mrs. Burke greeted the information was heard at the post office the other end of the town and made the horse plunge and rear. Although Brennan managed to hold it from bolting, it forced the buggy back on the footpath and almost turned it over. But Mrs. Burke was out long before then, for with a bound she sprang from the vehicle, sending Allnut staggering as she blundered against him in her rush for the bank.
Harding, having heard Allnut's words, stepped forward to meet her.
"You need not be alarmed, Mrs. Burke," he said, as she dashed up. "So far as you are concerned——"
"Where's that villain? Where's that wretch? He's stolen my deeds! I know it, I know it! I'm ruined! Brennan, come and arrest him."
Her words, shouted at the top of her voice, rang through the place and out on the roadway, where Brennan was still struggling with her rearing horse, and Soden and Allnut stood by as sympathetic onlookers.
"If you will come in, the manager will explain the matter to you," Harding said.