“Nay, not here,” said Gray, “go to the room below. I will be with you shortly.”
“I am even now proceeding to my own chamber,” said Ada; “in a quarter of an hour I will meet you here.”
Without waiting for a reply, Ada ascended to her own room.
Gray stood for a minute with the door in his hand, muttering to himself,—
“She braves me thus ever—if I were to remark that the sun shone, she would declare ’twas very cold—sometimes I doubt if I hate her or Learmont most; yet I must spare her to be revenged on him! Curses on them all!”
He flung the door to, which shut with a bang that Ada heard with thankfulness. Gray then unlocked a cupboard in the room, and proceeded to deposit, in a sacred place he had constructed at the back of it, the last sum of money he had wrung from the fears of Learmont.
In the same place of safety, likewise, was the written confession addressed to Sir Francis Hartleton, but that was not concealed; it lay openly in the cupboard, a prominent object to any one who should force the door. A smile of self-satisfaction came across Jacob Gray’s face as he took the paper in his hand, and fixed his keen eyes upon its superscription to the magistrate.
“It would, indeed, be a glorious revenge,” he mattered, “on both Britton and Learmont to accumulate an ample fortune first, and then, when my foot was on the very deck of the vessel that was to bear me from England for ever, to hail some idle lounger on the quay, and bid him take this to Sir Francis Hartleton, and ask his own reward. Yes, if I had half a million, that would be worth as much again. The time will come—yes—it will—it must come—when I have got enough money first, and then my revenge. Ye taunt me, Squire Learmont, and you, Britton, too, with my cunning—Ha! Ha! I am cunning, it is true—I am too cunning for your dull wits. Jacob Gray will be too much for you both when he has enough money!”
Suddenly then he now dropped the paper, and started; a slight noise outside his door met his ears, and his guilty soul trembled.
“What—what noise was that?” he whispered. “Ada—yes—Ada,—Ah! It must be Ada!”