"This won't do!" she told herself, wildly. Then, with a violent effort, she lifted the hand that lay limply upon his knee across his trouser pocket. It moved easily. She laid it down with a light, almost tender touch, as she remembered she had seen him return his keys to the very pocket where she now saw them bulging, and putting her fingers gingerly into the pocket, she drew them out.
"Thank God!" she murmured, almost hysterically, and, telling herself that if only she could hold witnesses in her hands to that absurd, so-called marriage of him with her, and could dictate terms, every farthing she might inherit from her uncle should be his, and more--she went to the table, found the tiny key in the bunch, and opened the desk.
Just as she was beginning to remove the leather purses of gold she had brought him from the well of the desk, so as to search beneath, a prolonged, curious, hissing snore seemed to arrest her very breath.
She stopped and went to him. The hissing sound was barely over--how curious it was, that half-snore, half breath! He lay still still--still as----
"Oh, no, no! It cannot be that! He looks asleep, and as happy as if he were an innocent little child!" she assured herself, returning to the table and to her task. Out she quickly took them, one by one, those silly purses--how puerile money and all those things seemed, she told herself, at such a moment--and then peered anxiously at the packets of papers.
Eureka! Her girlish handwriting! There was a package--she drew it out, and in the middle projected a paper--she could not undo the knots--there was no time--but she turned down a corner and saw printed letters--a margin----
Seizing her little bag, she thrust them in, and rapidly restoring the purses to their place, locked the desk.
"Shall I put the keys back in his pocket?" she asked herself. "No! I can leave them on the table. It is of no use trying to hide my having taken the letters. He will discover it."
She glanced round the room. What else must she do? She frowned and bit her lip as the brandy bottle caught her eye. There was still remaining a certain quantity of the drugged liquid.
"Any more would certainly make him very ill, if it did not kill him--and he will very likely start drinking again when he wakes up," she mused. "Can I pour it away?" She looked uncertainly at the door. No, it was too hazardous. Then she remembered she had seen some brown paper in that cupboard where the skeleton hung.