But this I decided not to do, for the old man was very fussy, and we were not exactly on the best of terms.
When I reached the mill all was quiet and just as I had left it, less than an hour before. I looked at the old clock that stood in one corner of the living-room and was astonished to find that it was already past midnight.
I sat down in the rocker with my brain busy thinking. But as moment after moment passed, my head sank back and my eyelids gradually closed. Everything was quiet save the loud tick, tick, of the old clock, and this soon put me into a sound sleep.
Once or twice I came very near waking up. Then I thought I was aroused by the flash of a bright light and a peculiar sensation in my nose and throat. But I immediately sank back, and went into a deeper sleep than ever.
When I awoke it was sunrise, and the light was streaming into the window and across the floor. I jumped to my feet; and as I did so, a small stone of peculiar brilliancy, lying on the floor, attracted my attention.
I picked the stone up and examined it. If it was not a diamond, it was a fine imitation, I wondered from whence it had come.
I could remember of no one about the mill having a diamond. To my knowledge Mr. Norton did not wear any such expensive ornament. The only man I knew of in the vicinity who sported such a stone was Mr. Jackson, the storekeeper, and on his visit to the mill he had not been near the living-room.
I gave the stone a second examination. As I did so I heard a footstep outside and slipped the thing into my pocket.
The next moment Mr. Norton came into the room from the sleeping apartment beyond. His face was pale and I wondered when he had come in, and if he had slept much.
“Woke up, have you?” he exclaimed. “’Tain’t a very nice place to go to sleep in.”