“Maybe he was afraid you still wanted his hide,” suggested Jane, now immeasurably happy.
“He did it!” said Cleigh, his sense of amazement awakening. “One chance in a thousand, and he caught that chance! But never to know how he did it!” 283
“Aren’t you glad now,” said Jane, “that you let him go?”
Cleigh chuckled.
“There!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands. “Just as he said! He prophesied that some day you would chuckle over it. He found his pearls. He knew he would find them! The bell!” she broke off, startled.
Never had Benson, the butler, witnessed such an exhibition of undignified haste. Cleigh, Jane, and Dennison, all three of them started for the door at once, jostling. What they found was only a bedraggled messenger boy, for it was now raining.
“Mr. Cleigh,” said the boy, grumpily, as he presented a letter and a small box. “No answer.”
“Where is the man who sent you?” asked Jane, tremendously excited.
“De office pushed me on dis job, miss. Dey said maybe I’d git a good tip if I hustled.”
Dennison thrust a bill into the boy’s hand and shunted him forth into the night again.