Before her upturned, pleading eyes and trembling lips, the iron of his purpose bent to the man in him, and he took her into his arms.
CHAPTER XXXVII THE PENITENT THIEF
A frosty gloom was over the city of Aniston, moon and stars hidden by a cloudy sky, from which a light snow—the first of the season—was sifting down. The streets were asleep; only occasional belated pedestrians were to be seen in the chilly air. These saw a man, his face muffled from the snowflakes, pass hurriedly toward the fountained square, from whose steeple two o'clock was just striking. The wayfarer skirted the square, keeping in cover of the buildings as though avoiding chance observation, till he stood on the pavement of a Gothic chapel fronting the open space.
Here he paused and glanced furtively about him. He could see the entrance to the minister's study, at which he had so often knocked and the great rose-window of the audience-room where he had once gamed with Harry Sanderson. This was the building he must enter like a thief.
On the night of his flight from Smoky Mountain, Hugh had ridden hard till dawn, abandoning the horse to find its way back as best it might. Hidden in a snug retreat, he had slept through the next day, to recommence his journeying at nightfall. He had thus been obliged to make haste slowly and had lost much valuable time. For two days after his arrival, he had hung about outside the town in a fever of impatience; for though he had readily ascertained that the premises were unoccupied, the first night he had been frightened away by the too zealous scrutiny of a policeman, and on the next he had been unable to force the door. That morning he had secured a skeleton-key, and now the weather was propitious for his purpose.
After a moment's reconnoitering, he scaled the frost-fretted iron palings and gained the shelter of the porch. He tried the key anxiously; to his relief it fitted. Another minute and he stood in the study, the door locked behind him, his veins beating with excitement.
He felt along the wall, drawing his hand back sharply as it encountered the electric switch. He struck a wax fusée and by its feeble ray gazed about him. The room looked as it had always looked, with Harry's books on the shelves, and his heavy walking-stick in the corner, and there against the wall stood the substantial iron safe that held his own ransom. Crouching down before it, he took from his pocket the paper upon which was written the combination; ten to the right, five to the left, twice nineteen to the right—
The match scorched his fingers, and he lighted another and began to turn the knob. The lock bore both figures and letters in concentric rings, and he saw that the seven figures Harry had written formed a word. Hugh dropped the match with a smothered exclamation, for the word was Jessica! So Harry really had loved her in the old days! Had he profited by that wedding-day expulsion to make love to her himself? Yet on the night of the game with Harry in the chapel the house in the aspens had been closed and dark. How had she come to be in Smoky Mountain? His father was dead—so Harry had said. If so, the money had gone to her, no doubt. Well, at any rate, she had never been anything to him and he was no dog-in-the-manger. What he needed now was the thousand dollars, and here it was. He swung the massive door wide and took out the canvas bag. With this and the ruby ring—it must easily be worth as much again—he could put the round world between himself and capture.