"O," said Hetty, "Robinson Crusoe has a little boy the same age as our Freddie, and Freddie goes over every day to play with young Crusoe, and that's why the stage is there."
"I heard children's voices from my room. I suppose they belonged to Freddie and his young friend?"
"Yes. You couldn't be within a mile of the place without hearing Freddie's voice."
"Good-day."
"Good-day." Crawford went to the door and opened it. Suddenly a thought struck him, and he closed the door and ran upstairs. When he found himself in his own room he shut the door, and said to himself in a tone of reproach, "How stupid of me not to think of that before. Why need I carry all this money about with me when I can leave the bulk of it here?"
He counted out twenty-five one hundred-pound notes and locked them in a drawer. He turned the key in the lock of the door on the outside, and dropped it into his pocket. Then he slipped down the stairs noiselessly and gained the street without seeing either Hetty or Mrs. Grainger.
"I feel a new man now," he said to himself. "There is about as much chance of my going mad as of my being made Archbishop of Canterbury. And now we shall see if there is anything in my notion about Hetty's luck. Tonight will be the test."
CHAPTER XL.
[CRAWFORD SLEEPS.]
William Crawford was in a hurry away from Welford, not in a hurry to the Counter Club. His design was more to escape a meeting with Layard, than to pick up any of his gambling associates. "A walk," he thought, "will do me good." So, instead of taking the steamboat or any wheeled conveyance, he crossed Welford Bridge at a quick pace and kept on, heading west.