"I do not think she is in any present danger. The poisoned knife is her safeguard. The whole household, after witnessing its terrible potency, fear it as they would the fangs of a rattlesnake. It was a lucky thought that left it with her.
"If your friend does not fail us, all will be well.
"Farewell.
28,263 M 2."
I need not tell you, my dear Heinrich, that we both followed this narrative with the most rapt attention and the most intense feeling.
"Brave girl!" I cried, when Maximilian stopped reading, "she is worth dying for." "Or living for," said he, "which is better still. How she rose to the occasion!"
"Yes," I said, "that was blood."
"There is as good stuff in the ranks," he replied, "as ever came out of them. The law of heredity is almost as unreliable as the law of variation. Everything rises out of the mud, and everything goes back into it."
"Do you think," I asked, after a pause, "that she will be safe until to-morrow night? Should I not go to her at once? Could I not see Rudolph and have her descend the rope-ladder, and I meet her and bring her here?"
"No," he replied, it is now too late for that; it is midnight. You can place full faith in Rudolph; his penetration and foresight are extraordinary. He will not sleep until Estella is out of that house; and his busy brain will be full of schemes in the meantime. The best thing we can do now is to go to bed and prepare, by a good long sleep, for the excitements and dangers of to-morrow night. Do not fear for Estella. She has ceased to be a child. In an hour she has risen to the full majesty of her womanhood."