ay, I added a contribution of my own.

"Northmour and I," I said, "are willing enough to help you to save your
life, but not to escape with stolen property."

He struggled for awhile with himself, as though he were on the point of
giving way to anger, but prudence had the best of the controversy.

"My dear boys," he said, "do with me or my money what you will. I leave
all in your hands. Let me compose myself."

And so we left him, gladly enough I am sure.

The last that I saw, he had once more taken up his great Bible, and with
tremulous hands was adjusting his spectacles to read.

VII

The recollection of that afternoon will always be graven on my mind.
Northmour and I were persuaded that an attack was imminent; and if it had
been in our power to alter in any way the order of events, that power
would have been used to precipitate rather than delay the critical moment.
The worst was to be anticipated; yet we could conceive no extremity so
miserable as the suspense we were now suffering. I have never been an
eager, though always a great, reader; but I never knew books so insipid
as those which I took up and cast aside that afternoon in the pavilion.
Even talk became impossible, as the hours went on. One or other was always
listening for some sound, or peering from an upstairs window over the
links. And yet not a sign indicated the presence of our foes.

We debated over and over again my proposal with regard to the money; and
had we been in complete possession of our faculties, I am sure we should
have condemned it as unwise; but we were flustered with alarm, grasped at
a straw, and determined, although it was as much as advertising Mr.
Huddlestone's presence in the pavilion, to carry my proposal into effect.

The sum was part in specie, part in bank paper, and part in circular notes
payable to the name of James Gregory. We took it out, counted it, inclosed
it once more in a dispatch box belonging to Northmour, and prepared a
letter in Italian which he tied to the handle. It was signed by both of us
under oath, and declared that this was all the money which had escaped the
failure of the house of Huddlestone. This was, perhaps, the maddest action
ever perpetrated by two persons professing to be sane. Had the dispatch
box fallen into other hands than those for which it was intended, we stood
criminally convicted on our own written testimony; but, as I have said, we
were neither of us in a condition to judge sober