He found the job of cutting away the wood-work at the window a long and a tedious one, for he could only get the oak away in small pieces, and the iron bars were very deeply imbedded.
“I have heard,” thought Albert, “of these things being done with more inefficient tools than a tolerably good knife, aided by perseverance, I shall rejoice to give this tricky magistrate the slip, even if I walk directly to another, and claim an inquiry into the causes of my present most unjustifiable detention.”
“When the heart is in any work, it makes good progress,” says Lord Bacon; and so it seemed in the present instance, for Albert was rapidly getting towards the end of the bar, when an unhappy circumstance retarded his labours. In getting out a large piece of the wood, he struck the blade of the knife on one side, and snapped it short off by the handle. In the excitement, then, of the moment, he seized the bar, and did what, at a cooler time, he could not have done, namely, wrenched one end of it from its hold. The powerful leverage he now had, soon enabled him to free it at the other extremity, and a prospect of escape seemed on the instant opened to him.
In a moment he threw up the window, and glancing into the garden, he was on the point of springing out, when he saw that there were some iron rails covering some underground part of the premises, upon which he must have fell, had he adventured the leap. Albert paused for a moment, and the sudden thought struck him that he could make a means of descending in safety. He took Gray’s cloak, which had been left hanging on the back of a chair, and firmly tying one corner of it to one of the remaining bars of the window, he let the remainder hang out, intending to slide down by it.
“Now, Sir Francis Hartleton,” he exclaimed, “with all your power I am able once more to defy you; and lest my flight should give occasion to surmises of my guilt, on account of Jacob Gray’s murder, I will betake me to the nearest magistrate, and allow him to hold me in custody if he pleases.”
He flung himself out at the window. His weight cut the cloak across, and there fell at his feet a folded paper. The young man lay stunned for a moment by his sudden fall. Then he slowly rose, and his eye fell upon the paper; it was addressed—“To Sir Francis Hartleton, with speed.”
Albert clasped his hands, and a cry of surprise escaped him. He knew the endorsement—it was Jacob Gray’s confession.
We must now leave Albert for some few moments to his mingled feelings of surprise, and joy, and grief, for such were all struggling in his breast, in order to follow Sir Francis Hartleton to his own private study, whither he instantly repaired after seeing Albert, as he thought, properly secured for the present.
He sat down, and covering his eyes with his hands, a habit he had when he wished a steady communion with his own thoughts, he remained silent for some time. Then he spoke in a low voice, and with a confident tone.
“This young man’s honesty and honour,” he said, “has been sufficiently tested, and the noble confidence of Ada in his love and sincerity is, thank Heaven, not misplaced. The mystery that envelopes Ada’s name and history, I fear now will never be disclosed; but I must make these two young people happy, and they will be foolish to torment themselves about the past, when the present will be so dear to them, and the future so full of hope. There shall be no sense of dependence, for I will exert all my interest to procure Albert Seyton some honourable employment; and although the solution of the mysterious conduct of Learmont and his strange connection with Gray and Britton may go to the grave with him, yet she, the long suffering, persecuted girl will be happy with the object of her heart’s choice. I must see her and prepare her for the interview which she shall have with him. How will his anger at his detention here change its complexion when he knows its cause.”