She was rambling again into the present, though, for the next speech that caught my attention was—
“It’s a good weight, Tom—Jim might have lent you a hand. The water’s deep in the cellar; but it won’t hurt the jewels, and the plate’ll clean. Come on.”
Was it the Denham Court robbery that was on her mind now? I held my breath while she went on—
“Tom, that sneaking Christie girl’s got wind of it somehow. Jim’s that gone on her he won’t listen to me; and, if I don’t prevent it, she’ll be his ruin.”
Again that strange confusion of my name with that of the unknown Jim! My brain seemed to be getting as much confused as her own. I held tightly to the arms of my chair as I listened to her ravings, as if in a futile attempt to steady body and mind. I was mad to discover who this James Woodfall was, and I left my chair, and drew, as if fascinated, nearer to the bed as she said—
“Take care, Jim. You risk too much. There must be some thief-taker in the world clever enough to recognize the forger James Woodfall in the jewel-robber—”
At that moment, while I listened with pulses beating high and eager eyes for the name, the door opened, and the sick woman, distracted by the noise, cried, “What’s that?”
It was the cook come to take my place. But the reaction from the high-pressure tension of my nerves during the last few hours was too much for me. I fell fainting to the floor.
The next morning I awoke late, with a headache and an unpleasant feeling of having gone through some horrible adventure. I told Haidee, who had been very much alarmed, poor little thing, by my antics at the door when I frightened Sarah, and by the noise of her fall, a much modified story of the whole occurrence, and then ventured down the stairs very cautiously; but Jane, instructed by the cook, had already removed the grease and made them safe again.
But I never again went down those stairs at night-time without a shudder.