I left them at Ventimiglia arrested as spies," said Tinker.
"Arrested as spies ?" cried Dorothy.
But Selina, whose face had undergone a slow but violent change, broke in, "So Alexander's humbugged me, has he?
He's brought me all the way from Paris here by a lie about Jesuits having tried to bury this young lady in one of their nasty convents, to do his dirty kidnapping work, has he?
I'll kidnap him! I'll teach him to play these tricks on me!" "Do!" said Tinker with warm approval.

"You let him have it! Think that you're pitching into me like you used to! Come along, all of you! Selina's simply tremendous when her back's up!" Selina opened the door, and went down the stairs with all the outraged majesty of a Boadicea.

The three of them followed her quietly, and at the bottom Tinker bade Dorothy and Elsie unbar the door of the house and himself kept close behind Selina.

She opened the door of the room; and at the sight of her the sustained shriek in which the Italian and the Frenchman were conversing died suddenly down, and the three kidnappers stared at her.
"You nasty, body-snatching scum!" said Selina, glowering at them.
"Eh! What?
You're daft, woman! What's the matter ?" said McNeill.
"Don't you woman me, Alexander McNeill!" said Selina.

"Daft, am I?
Daft to listen to your lies about Jesuits and the young lady! Daft to believe you when you told me not to listen to her, for the Jesuits had got round her, and she didn't know what was good for her! But I've found you out! I'm going to take the young lady straight back to her father, and send the police here for you." "Woman, you're mad!" said McNeill, rising with a scared face.
"Don't you woman me, you low Scotchman! You ought to be ashamed of yourself, mixing yourself up with these foreign rascals! You that's had a Christian up-bringing!" "You do what you're paid to do!" roared McNeill.
"Il faut agir!" said the Frenchman, with the true Napoleonic grasp of the situation, and he bounced in a lithe, over-confident manner at Selina.
In a flash she had her left hand well gripped in his abundant hair, and was clawing his face with her right.