'Once—and that for me, you would not face a fall over the cliffs, but fought like a wild cat with teeth and nails. Now, for this clodpole you are prepared to do it! I cannot understand you. What is this bumpkin to you, that you should be in such a way about him?'
'That is what I desire to speak with you about, mother,' said Winefred, and there was a ripple in her voice. 'I have tried to repair some of the wrong done him by myself. Now I ask you—will not you do the like?'
Mrs. Marley looked sharply at her sideways.
'What do you mean?' she inquired in a low tone, so low that Winefred could not hear the words, lost in the clicker of the pebbles displaced by their feet; but she knew what her mother said, for she was observing her face, and she read it in the movement of her lips.
'Mother,' she replied, 'you know what I mean. Recollect what the words were that you uttered, when he had let slip the rope, and was preparing to leap. Then you cried out——'
'Do not repeat them. Bah! it was nonsense. I spoke any foolish words that came at random into my head.'
'I do not believe you when you say this,' said Winefred. 'Then, when off your guard, the truth came out.'
Jane Marley looked down. Her veins swelled, her face became dark.
'Mother,' continued the girl very gravely, 'I believe what you then cried out. I believe that you found and kept the money that should have belonged to Jack Rattenbury. I shall have no peace of mind till every penny has been restored.'
'I have nothing of his.'