Part 9 (1/2)

”Well, what then?” demanded Aspel sharply.

”Oh! nothing. I only meant to warn you, for he is a dangerous man.”

The missionary was a thin but muscular man, with stern black eyes and a powerful nose, which might have rendered his face harsh if it had not been more than redeemed by a large firm mouth, round which played lines that told unmistakably of the milk of human kindness. He smiled as he spoke, and Aspel was disarmed.

”Thank you,” he said; ”I am well able to take care of myself.”

Evidently the missionary thought so too, for, with a quiet bow, he turned and went his way.

At the end of a remarkably dark pa.s.sage George Aspel ran his head against a beam and his knee against a door with considerable violence.

”Come in,” said a very weak but sweet little voice, as though doors in that region were usually rapped at in that fas.h.i.+on.

Lifting the latch and entering, Aspel found himself confronted by Tottie Bones in her native home.

It was a very small, desolate, and dirty home, and barely rendered visible by a thin ”dip” stuck into an empty pint-bottle.

Tottie opened her large eyes wide with astonishment, then laid one of her dirty little fingers on her rosy lips and looked imploringly at her visitor. Thus admonished, he spoke, without knowing why in a subdued voice.

”You are surprised to see me, Tottie?”

”I'm surprised at nothink, sir. 'Taint possible to surprise me with anythink in _this_ life.”

”D'you expect to be surprised by anything in any other life, Tottie?”

asked Aspel, more amused by the air of the child than by her answer.

”P'r'aps. Don't much know, and don't much care,” said Tottie.

”Well, I've come to ask something,” said the youth, sitting down on a low box for the convenience of conversation, ”and I hope, Tottie, that you'll tell me the truth. Here's a half-crown for you. The truth, mind, whether you think it will please me or not; I don't want to be pleased--I want the truth.”

”I'd tell you the truth without _that_,” said Tottie, eyeing the half-crown which Aspel still held between his fingers, ”but hand it over. We want a good many o' these things here, bein' pretty hard up at times.”

She spun the piece deftly in the air, caught it cleverly, and put it in her pocket.

”Well, tell me, now, did you post the letter I gave you the night I took tea with Miss Lillycrop?”

”Yes, I did,” answered the child, with a nod of decision.

”You're telling the truth?”

”Yes; as sure as death.”

Poor Tottie had made her strongest a.s.severation, but it did not convey to Aspel nearly so much a.s.surance as did the earnest gaze of her bright and truthful eyes.

”You put it in the pillar?” he continued.

”Yes.”

”At the end of the street?”