Felix glanced at the big-faced clock, facing the side window of the store.

“Yes, of course I will go, since Father Cruse wishes it.  Thank you for bringing his message.  You need not wait.”

“Needn’t wait!  Ye’re not goin’ one step without me.  They’d chuck ye out if ye did, and that’s what they won’t do to me if the captain’s in his office.  Besides, Mike run over a boy, and Tim Kelsey is up there now standin’ bail for him.  There’s no use goin’ unless ye see her.  That’s what the Father wanted ye to do, and that ain’t easy unless ye’ve got the run of the station.  So, ye see, I got to go with ye whether ye want me or not, or ye won’t get nowheres.  I’ll wait till ye get yer hat and coat.”

All the way to the station-house, Kitty beside him, Felix was putting into silent words the thoughts that raced through his mind.

“Barbara arrested as a vulgar thief!” he kept saying over and over.  “A woman brought up a lady—­with the best blood of England in her veins—­her father a man of distinction!  The woman I married!”

Then, as a jagged thread of light breaks away from a centre bolt, illuminating a distant cloud, a faint ray cheered him.  Perhaps the woman was not Barbara.  No one had any proof.  Father Cruse had never believed it, and he had only argued himself into thinking that the woman who had dropped the sleeve-link must be his wife.  Until he knew definitely, saw her with his own eyes, neither would he believe it, and a certain shame of his own suspicion swept through him like a flame.

The captain was out when the two reached the station.  Nor was there any one who knew Kitty except a departing patrolman, who nodded to her pleasantly as she passed in, adding in a whisper the information that Mike and Kelsey had gone up to Magistrate Cassidy, who held court in the next block, and that she was “not to worry,” as it was “all right.”

A new appointee—­a lieutenant she had never seen before—­was temporarily in charge of the station.

“I’m Mrs. Cleary,” she began, in her free, outspoken way, “and this is Mr. Felix O’Day.”

The new appointee stared and said nothing.

“Ye never saw me before, but that wouldn’t make any difference if the captain was around.  But ye can find out about me from any one of yer men who knows me.  I’m here with Mr. O’Day lookin’ up a woman who was brought here this morning for stealin’ some finery or whatever it was from one of these big stores—­ and we want to see her, if ye plaze.”

The lieutenant shook his head.  “Can’t see no prisoner without the captain’s orders.”

Kitty bridled, but she kept her temper.  “When will he be back?”

“Six o’clock.  He’s gone to headquarters.”

“He’d let me see her if he was here,” she retorted, with some asperity.

“No doubt—­but I can’t.”  All this time he had not changed his position—­his arms on the desk, his fingers drumming idly.