Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/283

284 enough money to get away—by different routes—and they're frightfully clever at disguises. They'll meet again in Rhodesia. And I've given them a letter to a chap I know. Hell put them into something. They'll be all right."

Lucilla turned and caught him by the arms just above the elbow.

"You're an angel," she said, shaking him gently. "I didn't know men could be so sensible. Why, any girl could see they weren't the sort of people to be burglars unless they couldn't possibly help it. Why, we might any of us have been driven to it—only we have been so lucky!"

"Yes," said Mr. Tombs, "that's what I said to myself. 'There, but for the grace of God, goes little Arthur.'" He took off the blue spectacles and looked at her.

"Why, you're that chauffeur!" said Lucilla, and she sat down suddenly on a stump.

"I am," said he; "and I am also Arthur Ponton, your defaulting trustee and guilty guardian. That's a secret you really must keep. I made quite a lot of money in a very short time in South Africa, and I'm going back to make some more. But I had to come and see that you were all right. I had you both so horribly on my conscience. But now I see that you are all right I must be off—to make some more money, so as to pay all the people I owe money to and be something like an honest chap again."

"I won't tell anyone—not even Jane," said Lucilla earnestly.

"Mind you don't," said he. "And now I'm off. My bag is packed, and my bark is on the shore, and the taxi is on its way to fetch me away from Cedar Court and from you. Haven't you a kind word to say to me before I go?"

Lucilla tried vainly for a kind word.

"I think you look awfully nice without your spectacles," was the best she could do. "I shall look much nicer when I come back to whitewash myself—pay all my creditors, you know. You'll be glad to see me then?"