"Tunk Hosely!" exclaimed the tinker, with a look that seemed to say, "God save the mark! An' would they believe him, think?"
Trove began to look troubled as Darrel left him.
"I'll go and drop them in the river," said Trove to himself.
It was eleven o'clock and the street dark and deserted as he left his room.
"It is a cowardly thing to do," the young man thought as he walked slowly, but he could devise no better way to get rid of them.
In the middle of the big, open bridge, he stopped to listen. Hearing only the sound of the falls below, Trove took the odd tools from under his coat and flung them over the rail.
He turned then, walking slowly off the bridge and up the main street, of Hillsborough. At a corner he stopped to listen. His ear had caught the sound of steps far behind him. He could hear it no longer, and went his way, with a troubled feeling that robbed him of rest that night. In a day or two it wore off, and soon he was hold of the bit, as he was wont to say, and racing for the lead in his work. He often walked to school with Polly and went to church with her every Sunday night. There had been not a word of love between them, however, since they came to the village, until one evening she said:—
"I am very unhappy, and I wish I were home."
"Why?"
She was not able to answer for a moment.