"Ah! Mrs. Bunce," returned the highwayman; "what are you doing in this neighbourhood so late?"
"I'm going to pass the night with a relation of mine that's ill, and which lives at the top of the Lane," answered Mrs. Bunce. "But, Oh! Mr. Rainford, what a shocking thing this is about poor dear Mr. Bones!"
"What?" ejaculated Tom, with a kind of guilty start.
"Why, sir—he's dead, poor man!" sobbed Mrs. Bunce: "dead and buried, sir!"
"Dead—and buried!" repeated the highwayman mechanically. "And how came you to know this?"
"His friend Mr. Tidmarsh came and told me and Toby about it this blessed morning; and in the afternoon we all followed the poor old gentleman to the grave in Clerkenwell churchyard."
"His death was sudden, then?" said Tom, anxious to glean how far the woman might be informed relative to the particulars of the event which she was deploring.
"Mr. Tidmarsh isn't given to gossiping, sir," replied Mrs. Bunce; "and he said very little about it. It was quite enough for us to know that the poor dear old gentleman is gone—and without having made any Will either: so me and Toby are thrown as you may say on the wide world, without a friend to help us."
"But Mr. Bones was rich—very rich—was he not?" demanded Tom, who felt particularly uncomfortable at this confirmation of his worst fears—for he to some extent looked upon himself as the cause of the old fence's sudden death.
"Rich, God bless ye! Ah! as rich as a King!" exclaimed Mrs. Bunce. "But no one knows where he kept his money—unless it is that Tidmarsh."