'Not quite,' said Hugh. 'Partly.'
'Who was the messenger from whom you took it?'
'A woman. One Varden's daughter.'
'Oh indeed!' said Mr Chester gaily. 'What else did you take from her?'
'What else?'
'Yes,' said the other, in a drawling manner, for he was fixing a very
small patch of sticking plaster on a very small pimple near the corner
of his mouth. 'What else?'
'Well a kiss,' replied Hugh, after some hesitation.
'And what else?'
'Nothing.'
'I think,' said Mr Chester, in the same easy tone, and smiling twice or
thrice to try if the patch adhered--'I think there was something else.
I have heard a trifle of jewellery spoken of--a mere trifle--a thing
of such little value, indeed, that you may have forgotten it. Do you
remember anything of the kind--such as a bracelet now, for instance?'
Hugh with a muttered oath thrust his hand into his breast, and drawing
the bracelet forth, wrapped in a scrap of hay, was about to lay it on
the table likewise, when his patron stopped his hand and bade him put it
up again.
'You took that for yourself my excellent friend,' he said, 'and may keep
it. I am neither a thief nor a receiver. Don't show it to me.
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