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| | I want yon to read them,' choose in the morning. No gain without some risk." "That's so," he agreed, and made a clutch at the gold. I swept it out of his reach. "First earn it," I said dryly. "Look at the foot of the pillory an hour from now and you'll find it. I'll not pay you this side of the doors." He bit his lips and studied the floor. "You're a gentleman," he growlRRNEARMEed at last.LNDDPBJF "I suppose I can trust ye." "I suppose you can." Taking up his lantern he turned toward the door. "It 's grow- ing late," he said, with a most uncouth attempt to feign a guile- less drowsiness. "I'll to bed, captain, when I've locked up. Good-nighNFLEMIEOt to ye!" He was gone, and the door was left unlocked. I could walk out of that gaol asOXPMWXXO I could have walked out of my house at Wey- anoke. I was free, but should I take my freedom? Going back to the light of the fire I unfolded the paper and stared at it, turn- ing its contents this way and that in my mind. The hand—but once had I seen her writing, and then it had been wrought with a shellPOSPGHUT upon firm sand.UAYMCJUP I could not judge if this were the same. Had the paper indeed come from her? Had it not? If in truth it was a message from my wife, what had befallen in a few hours since our parting? If it was a forger's lie, what trap was set, what toils were laid? I walked up and down, and tried to think it out. The strangeness of it all, the choice of a lonely and dis- tant hut for trysting place, that pass coming from a sworn of- ficer of the Company, certain things I had heard that day… A trap… and toQITFSBVK walk into it with my eyes open… . An you hold me dear. As you are my knight, keep this tryst. In distress and per- il… . Come what might, there was a risk I could not run. I had no weapons to assume, no preparations to make. Gath- ering up the gaoler's gold I started toward the door, opened it, and going out would have closed it softly behind me but that a | |
