But all the same, there's naught like taking precautions beforehand, and so I'll tell you what we'll do.

I should be back in town soon after twelve, and I'll give a tap at your window as I pass it, and then you'll know all's right." That would be an easy enough thing to manage, for Maisie's room, where she slept with a younger sister, was on the ground floor of her father's house in a wing that butted on to the street, and I could knock at the pane as I passed by.

Yet still she seemed uneasy, and I hastened to say what--not even then knowing her quite as well as I did later--I thought would comfort her in any fears she had.

"It's a very easy job, Maisie," I said; "and the ten pounds'll go a long way in buying that furniture we're always talking about." She started worse than before when I said that and gripped the hand that I had round her waist.
"Hughie!" she exclaimed.

"He'll not be giving you ten pounds for a bit of a ride like that! Oh, now I'm sure there's danger in it! What would a man be paying ten pounds for to anybody just to take a message?
Don't go, Hughie! What do you know of yon man except that he's a stranger that never speaks to a soul in the place, and wanders about like he was spying things?
And I would liefer go without chair or table, pot or pan, than that you should be running risks in a lonesome place like that, and at that time, with nobody near if you should be needing help.