“No, good man, it is not false, nor yet is it quite true: there was another parchment.”
“There, there, there! Where is it?”
“But,” continued Margaret calmly, “it was not a town record (so you have gained your hundred crowns, good man): it was but a private deed between the burgomaster here and my grandfather Flor—”
“Hush, hush!”
“—is Brandt.”
“Where is it, girl? that is all we want to know.”
“Have patience, and I shall tell you. Gerard read the title of it, and he said, 'This is as much yours as the burgomaster's,' and he put it apart, to read it with me at his leisure.”
“It is in the house, then?” said the burgomaster, recovering his calmness.
“No, sir,” said Margaret gravely, “it is not.” Then, in a voice that faltered suddenly, “You hunted—my poor Gerard—so hard—and so close-that you gave him—no time-to think of aught—but his life—and his grief. The parchment was in his bosom, and he hath ta'en it with him.”
“Whither, whither?”