The profound stillness of everything surprised him, and more than once he was almost tempted to believe he must have been dreaming, when he supposed he saw Learmont enter the house at all. Suddenly, however, the silence was broken by a loud crash at the windows, and, by the dim and uncertain light, Albert saw some object apparently dashed through the glass, and then withdrawn again.
That object was the head of Jacob Gray, for then had Britten given him his death blow in the manner we have recorded.
Excited as he was, this maddened Albert, and the idea seizing him that Ada must be in some danger, he, on the impulse of the moment, knocked loudly at the door and finally with one vigorous rush against it, burst it open, and fell himself into the shop.
It was some moments before, in the dark, he could find the staircase; but, when he did, he ascended it as rapidly as he could, resolved when he reached the top, to make himself known by his voice.
“Ada—Ada,” he cried in a tone that rang through the house, and fell with a disagreeable chill upon the heart of Learmont, who immediately recognised in it the voice of Albert, and could not divine how at such a moment, he should happen to be at hand.
“Ada—Ada,” again cried Albert, and then Learmont laid his hands on the smith’s arm, and whispered—
“Britton, there is but one man there, let us kill him and escape.”
“I’m willing but where is Master Jacob’s money, and his confession, I should like to know?”
“The money I will make good to you, and I am quite convinced of what I always suspected, that there is no confession but what lay in Gray’s own brain.”
“Then it don’t lay in his brain now,” said Britton, “I’ll be sworn.”