“Yes, Pradelle. That’s right, speak ill of the only friend we have. Why, we owe everything to him. What could we have done? Where could we have gone if it had not been for him, and my finding out where he was through asking at the old meeting-place?”
“I do not like Mr Pradelle,” said Louise firmly. “Then you ought to,” said Harry, as he walked up and down the room like some caged animal. “As he says, if you go to sell the things at a respectable place they’ll ask all manner of questions that it is not convenient to answer, and we must not risk detection by doing that.”
“Risk detection?” said Louise, clasping her hands about one knee as she gazed straight before her.
“The people here are as suspicious of us as can be, and the landlady seems ready to ask questions every time we meet on the stairs.”
“Yes,” said Louise in a sad, weary way; “she is always asking questions.”
“But you do not answer them?”
“I—I hardly know what I have said, Harry. She is so pertinacious.”
“We must leave here,” said the young man excitedly. “Why don’t Pradelle come?”
“Do you expect him to-night?”
“Expect him? Yes. I have only half-a-crown left, and he has your gold chain to pledge, he is to bring the money to-night. I expected him before.”