After a little pause Mrs. O'Connor came to the door and opened it.
"What's wanted?" she asked. Then, recognizing her visitor as one of the lodgers in the room above, she added, "Is it the boy?"
"Yes; where is he?" demanded Marlowe, abruptly.
"It's gone to the doctor he is."
"Gone to the doctor!" repeated Marlowe, mystified. "What do you mean?"
"He was taken sick jist after you wint away, and as he couldn't open the door which was locked, he pounded on the floor. My key wouldn't fit, so he asked me to throw up a clothes-line, which I did, and the poor crayther got out of the winder, and wint for the doctor. He'll be back soon, I'm thinkin'."
"No, he won't," growled Marlowe. "He's a thief and a villain, and he's run away."
"Did I iver hear the likes?" exclaimed Mrs. O'Connor. "Who'd have thought it, shure?"
"I've a good mind to wring your neck, for helping him off," said Marlowe, forgetting in his anger the politeness due to the fair sex.
"Would you, thin?" exclaimed Mrs. O'Connor, incensed. "Then my husband would do the same to you, you brute! I am glad the boy's gone, so I am, and I hope he'll never get into your clutches again, you monster! Tim, wake up there, and defind yer wife from the thafe that's insulted her!"