"Then I saw you take the lady and the little boy into the shop, and you bought a pair of ear-rings, which you gave to the lady; and as you came out again, I heard you say to her, 'This present is a kind of recompense for the diamonds which I made you give up,'—or something to the same meaning."
"Yes—I remember that I did make use of those or similar words!" cried Rainford. "But how the deuce did it happen that I never once caught a glimpse of you?"
"Oh! sir—I acted with so much caution," replied the lad; "and then you did not suspect that you was watched."
"True!" said Tom thoughtfully. "And of course you reported all this to Old Death?"
"I followed you on to Lock's Fields, and then returned to Seven Dials, where I told Mr. Bones and Mrs. Bunce all I had seen and heard."
"And what did they say? Tell me every thing, Jacob," exclaimed the highwayman.
"They seemed very much surprised to think that you and Miss Esther were intimate together——"
Jacob suddenly paused—for again did a dark cloud overspread Tom Rain's countenance.
"Go on, Jacob," he said, observing that the lad was alarmed. "I am subject to a sudden pain——but it is nothing at all. Go on, I say. You were telling me that Old Death and that disgusting woman, Mrs. Bunce, were very much astonished at a certain circumstance. Well—and what did they say?"
"They asked me whether either you, sir, or the lady took any little thing—when the jeweller's back was turned," replied Jacob, timidly; "but I assured them that you did not."