Mr. Batchgrew growled—­

“The money must be in the house.  The truth is, Elizabeth, ye don’t know no more than that bedpost where ye put it.”

And Rachel agreed eagerly—­

“Of course it must be in the house!  I shall set to and turn everything out.  Everything!”

“Ye’d better!” said Thomas Batchgrew.

“That will be the best thing, dear—­perhaps,” said Mrs. Maldon, indifferent, and now plainly fatigued.

Every one seemed determined to be convinced that the money was in the house, and to employ this conviction as a defence against horrible dim suspicions that had inexplicably emerged from the corners of the room and were creeping about like menaces.

“Where else should it be?” muttered Batchgrew, sarcastically, after a pause, as if to say, “Anybody who fancies the money isn’t in the house is an utter fool.”

Mrs. Maldon had closed her eyes.

There was a faint knock at the door.  Rachel turned instinctively to prevent a possible intruder from entering and catching sight of those dim suspicions before they could be driven back into their dark corners.  Then she remembered that she had asked Mrs. Tams to bring up some Revalenta Arabica food for Mrs. Maldon as soon as it should be ready.  And she sedately opened the door.  Mrs. Tams, with her usual serf-like diffidence, remained invisible, except for the hand holding forth the cup.  But her soft voice, charged with sensational news, was heard—­

“Mrs. Grocott’s boy next door but one has just been round to th’ back to tell me as there was a burglary down the Lane last night.”

As Rachel carried the food across to the bed, she could not help saying, though with feigned deference, to Mr. Batchgrew—­

“You told us last night that there wouldn’t be any more burglaries, Mr. Batchgrew.”

The burning tightness round the top of her head, due to fatigue and lack of sleep, seemed somehow to brace her audacity, and to make her careless of consequences.

The trustee and celebrity, though momentarily confounded, was recovering himself now.  He determined to crush the pert creature whose glance had several times incommoded him.  He said severely—­

“What’s a burglary down the Lane got to with us and this here money?”

“Us and the money!” Rachel repeated evenly.  “Nothing, only when I came downstairs in the night the greenhouse door was open.” (The scullery was still often called the greenhouse.) “And I’d locked it myself!”

A troubling silence followed, broken by Mr. Batchgrew’s uneasy grunts as he turned away to the window, and by the clink of the spoon as Rachel helped Mrs. Maldon to take the food.

At length Mr. Batchgrew asked, staring through the window—­

“Did ye notice the dust on top o’ that cupboard?  Was it disturbed?”

Hesitating an instant, Rachel answered firmly, without turning her head—­