A shudder came ever his frame as he regarded them and he muttered, “Can I? Dare I leave this spot with the knowledge of what it conceals? And yet, I am surely safe now. If these men—these tools by which I have hewn my path to wealth; if these could be safely disposed of—then—ah, then, I might know peace. At least this anxious fever of wild apprehension that gnaws at my heart would subside, and if I had a pang it would be for the past and not from a dread of that which was to come.”
He folded his cloak closer around him, and with hasty steps passed onwards to the smithy.
Thrice he struck the heavy door with the hilt of his sword, and in a moment the smith’s voice from within called loudly, “Who knocks?”
“Learmont,” was the answer; the door was flung open and the squire stood as the stranger had stood the preceding evening in the glare of the fire from the smithy.
“You are punctual, sir,” said Gray, advancing with an air of mock ceremony.
Learmont waved his hand in reply, and stalked into the old hall.
“Now,” he said, when Britton had barred the door, “I am here. Make your proposition.”
“Are you not afraid, sir,” sneered Gray, “to trust your worshipful person alone with two such old acquaintances?”
“No,” answered Learmont fearlessly, “I know you both too well. You calculate. My life is valuable to you. My death, in the accomplishment of which you might get some chance injury yourselves, would be a perfectly gratuitous act.”
“Enough of this folly,” growled Britton. “Let us to business.”