'Zita, here are your ten pounds. I did not give them to Beamish.'
'Mark! and he has been deposed, and cuffed and beaten, for having stolen it.'
'He has been thrown into the dyke, and I have helped him out of the water. Do not be disconcerted. I could not have done him a better turn than this, to get him out of association with men who are running their heads into hangmen's nooses.'
CHAPTER XXIV
A NEW DANGER
'MARK, how was it that you did not give them my ten pounds?'
'Why, my dear Zita, I thought I could get them off without it. I gave them Drownlands' twenty. He escaped cheap at that price, and twenty pounds is nothing to him. I made sure I could induce them to leave your van alone without payment to do so, and when I saw them harness Jewel to it, then I was quite certain they would have to leave it; you do not suppose I would have suffered those rascals to take your money except in an extremity? To rob you was to rob me, Zit—for I never would have suffered you to lose those ten pounds. If I had been constrained to give them up, I would have refunded this sum to you out of my own pocket.'
'You are very good.'