Page:In The Cage (London, Duckworth, 1898).djvu/159

Rh 'So were you—you must do me that justice,' she answered with a smile. 'But let me see. Wasn't it Dover?'

'Yes, Miss Dolman'

'Parade Lodge, Parade Terrace?'

'Exactly—thank you so awfully much!' He began to hope again. 'Then you have it—the other one?'

She hesitated afresh; she quite dangled him. 'It was brought by a lady?'

'Yes; and she put in by mistake something wrong. That's what we've got to get hold of!'

Heavens! what was he going to say? flooding poor Paddington with wild betrayals! She couldn't too much, for her joy, dangle him, yet she couldn't either, for his dignity, warn or control or check him. What she found herself doing was just to treat herself to the middle way. 'It was intercepted?'

'It fell into the wrong hands. But there's something in it,' he continued to blurt out, 'that may be all right. That is, if it's wrong, don't you know? It's all right if it's wrong,' he remarkably explained.