“Very good. Of course, if you won’t make a charge I can’t take it. All I can say is, that if you find yourself in the same hole again, it’ll about serve you right if no one comes to help you. It’s because people won’t go into court that there’s so much of this sort of thing about. What’s the good of having laws if you won’t let them protect you.”
Off he strode in a huff. I stared after him a little blankly.
“I don’t think, Pollie, that you need have been quite so short with him. What he says is true; we might have been murdered if it hadn’t been for him.”
“I wasn’t short with him; I didn’t mean to be. But I couldn’t charge them—could I? Besides, I want to get in. I didn’t want to have him hanging about, for I don’t know how long, watching us.”
“Someone else may be watching us.”
“No fear of that; they’ve had enough of it for to-night.”
“So you said before, and hardly had you said there was nothing to fear when they had us at their mercy. It’s my belief that what your uncle said in that letter—which now they’ve got—is true, and that we are in peril, dreadful peril, and that though we mayn’t know it someone is watching us all the time. For my part I should like that policeman to have kept his eye upon us until we were safe indoors.”
“After what my uncle said about allowing no one to see us enter?”
“It’s a pity you are not equally particular about everything your uncle said, my dear.”
Off we started down the lane, or street, or whatever it was. If I had had my way, after all that had happened, I would not have attempted to enter the house until at any rate next morning; I would rather have wandered about the streets all night. But I could see that she was set on at least trying to get in. I did not wish to quarrel, or to be accused of a wish to desert her after promising to be her companion. So I stuck to her side. Presently she spoke.