“But I can't tell you. Who knows what ideas you might get into your head about those five years, if I told you now? Men are so queer, and they can be so stupid sometimes! And I can't bear to think of losing one smallest bit of your love... not now! It would kill me!
“But I want you to know, sometime. And so I'm writing you—it's my first love letter—the first real one, Dickie. If you die first, I'll tell you in Heaven. And if I die first, you'll understand!
“Agnes.”
XII.—Behind the Curtain
It was as dark as the belly of the fish that swallowed Jonah. A drizzling rain blanketed the earth in chill discomfort. As I splashed and struggled along the country road, now in the beaten path, and now among the wet weeds by its side, I had never more heartily yearned for the dullness and comforts of respectability. Here was I with more talents in my quiver, it pleased me to think, than nine out of ten of the burghers I had left sleeping snug and smug in the town a few miles behind; with as much real love of humanity as the next man, too; and yet shivering and cursing my way into another situation that might well mean my death. And all for what? For fame or riches? No, for little more than a mere existence, albeit free from responsibility. Indeed, I was all but ready to become an honest man then and there, to turn back and give up the night's adventure, had but my imagination furnished me with the picture of some occupation whereby I might gain the same leisure and independence as by what your precisians call thieving.
With the thought I stumbled off the road again, and into a narrow gully that splashed me to the knees with muddy water. Out of that, I walked plump into a hedge, and when I sought to turn from it at right angles, I found myself still following its line. This circumstance showed me that I was come unaware upon the sharp turn of the road which marked the whereabouts of the house that was my object. Following the hedge, I found the entrance to the graveled driveway within a hundred yards of my last misstep, and entered the grounds. I groped about me for a space, not daring to show a light, until presently a blacker bulk, lifting itself out of the night's comprehensive blackness, indicated the house itself, to my left and a bit in front of me. I left the moist gravel—for there is nothing to be gained on an expedition of this sort by advertising the size and shape of your boots to a morbidly inquisitive public—and reached the shelter of the veranda by walking across the lawn.
There, being out of eyeshot from the upper windows, I risked a gleam from my pocket lantern, one of those little electric affairs that are occasionally useful to others than night watchmen. Two long French windows gave on the veranda; and, as I knew, both of them opened from the reception hall. A bit of a way with the women is not amiss in my profession; and the little grayeyed Irish maid, who had told me three weeks before of old man Rolfe's stinginess and brutality towards the young wife whom he had cooped up here for the past four years, had also given me, bit by bit, other information more valuable than she could guess. So, thanks to the maid, I was aware that the safe where the Rolfe jewels were kept—and often a substantial bit of money as well—was situated in the library; which was just beyond the hall and connected with it by a flight of four or five steps. This safe was my objective point.
The wooden window shutters were but the work of a moment; and the window fastenings themselves of only a few minutes more. (I flatter myself that I have a very coaxing way with window fasteners.) The safe itself would give me the devil's own trouble, I knew. It was really a job for two men, and I ached all over to be at it, to be safely through with it, and away, a good hour before sunrise.