Ghastly pale, and shaking like an aspen, Isaac brought the candle from the table, and stared into the hole. Yes, it was empty—quite empty. The bag was gone.
Breathing hard, and with the air of a man stupefied by a sudden blow, Isaac put the panel back into its place, and then stood thinking, or trying to think.
"There's t'other hole," he muttered feebly. "I don't know as I mightn't—maybe—have put it in there."
He knew he had not done so, yet he tried to believe that it was possible. He knew well that the second small hiding-place could not have contained the big bag of gold, even if it had not been already half filled by a tin box, holding Bank of England notes, yet he tried to defer the agony of his loss by cheating himself into the notion that perhaps somehow the gold was there.
The second spring did not answer so readily to his touch as the first had done. Isaac slowly woke to the fact that it had been tampered with. Icy drops broke out on his face. What if here too—?
The wood-work yielded suddenly, and Isaac almost fell backwards with the force he had been exerting. He grasped the back of a chair, and steadied himself. Then he stooped and looked in.
A deep groan broke from Isaac. For the box of bank-notes was gone also.
Dazed and stunned, Isaac staggered to a chair. He was utterly bewildered. It did not at first occur to him that any steps might be taken for the recovery of the stolen money. He only knew that it was lost.
"Gone! gone!" broke now and then from his parched lips.
Isaac could not have told how long he sat there in his despair. The candle-end burnt itself out slowly, and after many flickerings and flarings up, the flame was quenched.