The good couple welcomed him
with a warmth beyond his merits.
"Oh, what a blessing you have come!" cried Morna, whose kind eyes
discovered a tell-tale moisture. "Do please go up and convince Mrs.
Steel that you can't be rearrested on a charge on which you have already
been tried and acquitted!"
"But of course you can't," said Langholm. "Who has put that into her
head, Mrs. Woodgate?"
"The place is hemmed in by police."
"Since when?" asked Langholm, quickly.
"Only this morning."
Langholm held his tongue. So the extortioner Abel, outwitted by the
amateur policeman, had gone straight to the professional force! The
amateur had not suspected him of such resource.
"I don't think this has anything to do with Mrs. Steel," he said at
last; "in fact, I think I know what it means, and I shall be only too
glad to reassure her, if I can."
But his own face was not reassuring, as Hugh Woodgate plainly told him
in the first words which the vicar contributed to the discussion.
"I have been finding out things--I have not been altogether
unsuccessful--but the things are rather on my mind," the author
explained. "How does Steel take the development, by the way?"
"As a joke!" cried Morna, with indignation; her husband was her echo
both as to words and tone; but Langholm could only stare.
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