"Certainly not! Though of another communion she has always——"
"Well, then, say no more"—I stamped my foot—"she has suffered the same fate as my father. That accursed house has something to do with it. As yet I do not know what. But something! She has not gone away from Breckonside without letting her friends know. I will not listen to that from you or any other man, Mr. Ablethorpe!"
"You will not have to listen to it," said he gently, clapping me meanwhile on the far shoulder. "You are a good fellow, Joe, and I am proud to count myself among your friends. You have a sort of sneaking liking for the Old Hayfork, haven't you, Joe?"
That was the way he spoke. A fellow one couldn't be waxy with long. I told him Yes. And I think he knew how much I liked him by what it cost me to get it out.
"Yes, Joe, we do very well," he went on, "and I dare say you have not forgotten the time I sent you up the drain pipe, and the little rings you found?"
The matter had never wholly slipped my memory, though, of course, the losing of my father and Elsie one after the other—mystery piled on mystery, as it were—had made me think less often about it.
I told him so.
"Well," said he, "I know more about it now, though—as you say—not yet all. It is necessary to wait a little before I have all the strings in my hands. This, however, I will tell you. The little rings you found were those of the mail bags which were stolen out of Harry Foster's cart! They had been half fused in a furnace and afterwards hidden in the place where you found them."
"But—but——" I faltered. "Do you think that—that Harry Foster was there too—up there where I went—in the tunnel which led from the Backwater?"
He shook his head.