He then made a careful examination of the safe which, he felt assured, contained property—possibly notes and gold were encased therein.
Drawing forth his bent wire, he endeavoured therewith to pick the lock.
He twisted and turned the wire in every possible direction, but was not successful in opening the safe. But he was not a man, as we have already seen, to give up a thing easily.
No. 24.
“OH! MY LORD,” SAID AVELINE, “PITY AND PARDON ME.”
He had set his heart upon ransacking the safe, and to leave the house without effecting this object was the very last idea that would enter his mind.
He persevered with most laudable ambition, but the lock was too much for him—it was of peculiar construction.
He tried his skeleton keys with no better result. He sat down in one of the library chairs, the very image of despair; he never remembered to have been so baffled.
He had another turn at the door of the safe, which was as immovable as the Rock of Gibraltar—a place, by the way, he was afterwards destined to become acquainted with.