'Did she send you with this message to save your own skin?'
'That is past saving, except by a miracle, which I am in no situation to expect will be wrought for me. Understand me, sir, I am out of hope of earthly salvation. I have nothing to gain, nothing to look for from man. I make you freely acquainted with that position of my affairs, which are purely desperate. And the person of whom we speak looks to you as her sole hope in the world. She sends you this, take it, I know not the contents, the seal, as you perceive, being unbroken.'
'This looks more serious,' said the Colonel, taking the sealed note which Kelly handed to him.
He pored over the letter, holding it up to the moonlight. 'Do as the bearer bids you, if you would have me live,' he read; then, with a bitter laugh, he tore the note into the smallest shreds, and was about to dash them down on the grass.
'Hold, sir,' Kelly said; 'preserve them till you can burn them. Or--I have myself swallowed the like before now.'
The Colonel stared, and put the fragments into his pocket-book.
'Well,' he said, 'I am hearing you.'
'I thank you, sir; you will grant that I did not wrong you in trusting your generosity. If I am a free man to-morrow, or even to-night after this business is done, I shall have the honour of meeting you, wherever you are pleased to appoint. For my cloth have no scruple, I never was more than half a parson.'
'Sir, I shall treat you as you may merit. And now for your commands, which, it seems, I am in a manner under the necessity to obey.'
'You see this key, sir,' said Kelly, offering that of one of his strong boxes, 'take it, go to my lodgings, which, by a miracle, are in the same house as your own. Enter my parlour, 'tis on the ground floor; open the small iron strong box which this key fits, and burn all the--brocades which you find there.'