s mark by not understanding with how great a bashaw he had to
deal in the person of Carew of Crompton. Trevethick was aware of this,
and indeed the chaplain had given him a hint to keep the proposed
purchase-money within easy reach, in case the Squire's mood might alter,
or his necessities demand his consent to what Mr. Whymper honestly
believed to be a very advantageous offer. Otherwise, Trevethick was not
one to keep a hoard in his house for the mere pleasure of gloating over
it. He had not looked into his strong-box for months, nor would he have
done so now, but for this unexpected demand upon it. It was safe enough,
he knew, in his daughter's room; and as for its having been opened, that
was an impossibility; the padlock hung in front of it as usual, and it
would have taken a man half a lifetime to have hit upon its open sesame
by trial. He was justly proud of that letter lock, which was his own
contrivance, invented when he was quite a young man, and had been
perforce compelled to turn his attention to mechanics, and he considered
it a marvel of skill. It was characteristic in him that he had never
revealed its secret even to his daughter. Indeed, with the exception of
Harry, nobody at Gethin--save, perhaps, Hannah, when she dusted her
young mistress's room--had ever set eyes upon it, nor, if they had,
would they have understood its meaning.

It was therefore without the slightest suspicion of its having been
tampered with, that, an hour or two after the conversation just
narrated, Trevethick repaired to his strong-box, with the intention of
taking from it the sum of money required by Solomon. The padlock was
like a little clock, except that it had the letters of the alphabet
round its face instead of figures, and three hands instead of two; this
latter circumstance insured, by its complication, the safety of the
treasure, but at the same time rendered it useless--unless he broke the
box open--to the possessor himself if by any accident he should forget
the letter time at which he had set it; and accordingly Trevethick was
accustomed to carry a memorandum of this about with him; even if he lost
it, it would be no great matter, for what meaning would it convey to any
human being to find a bit of paper with the letters B, N, Z upon it?
Harry, as we have said, was out of the house, so his daughter's room was
untenanted. He went to a cupboard, and took down the box from its usual
shelf, with the same feeling of satisfac