“It is a horrible story!” said Donal.
“I want you to go to the house for me: you do not mind going, do you?”
“Not in the least,” answered Donal.
“I want you to search a certain bureau there for some papers.—By the way, have you any news to give me about Forgue?”
“No, my lord,” answered Donal. “I do not even know whether or not they meet, but I am afraid.”
“Oh, I daresay,” rejoined his lordship, “the whim is wearing off! One pellet drives out another. Behind the love in the popgun came the conviction that it would be simple ruin! But we Graemes are stiff-necked both to God and man, and I don’t trust him much.”
“He gave you no promise, if you remember, my lord.”
“I remember very well; why the deuce should I not remember? I am not in the way of forgetting things! No, by God! nor forgiving them either! Where there’s anything to forgive there’s no fear of my forgetting!”
He followed the utterance with a laugh, as if he would have it pass for a joke, but there was no ring in the laugh.
He then gave Donal detailed instructions as to where the bureau stood, how he was to open it with a curious key which he told him where to find in the room, how also to open the secret part of the bureau in which the papers lay.