"Half a mile, then?"
"Half a mile," said Mr. Tredgold, nodding, as she wrote it down.
"Four yards was what Mr. Stobell said," exclaimed Selina, excitedly. "I've got it down here, and father heard it. And you make the time it happened and a lot of other things different. I don't believe that you were any more shipwrecked than I was."
"Not so much," added the irrepressible Mr. Vickers.
Mr. Tredgold walked to the door. "I am busy," he said, curtly. "Good morning."
Miss Vickers passed him with head erect, and her small figure trembling with rage and determination. By the time she had cross-examined Mr. Chalk her wildest suspicions were confirmed. His account differed in several particulars from the others, and his alarm and confusion when taxed with the discrepancies were unmistakable.
Binchester rang with the story of her wrongs, and, being furnished with three different accounts of the same incident, seemed inclined to display a little pardonable curiosity. To satisfy this, intimates of the gentlemen most concerned were provided with an official version, which Miss Vickers discovered after a little research was compiled for the most part by adding all the statements together and dividing by three. She paid another round of visits to tax them with the fact, and, strong in the justice of her cause, even followed them in the street demanding her money.
"There's one comfort," she said to the depressed Mr. Tasker. "I've got you, Joseph. They can't take you away from me."
"There's nobody could do that," responded Mr. Tasker, with a sigh of resignation.
"And if I had to choose," continued Miss Vickers, putting her arm round his waist, "I'd sooner have you than a hundred thousand pounds."