“‘Not now,’ she said hastily; ‘I hear papa coming; wait till after breakfast, and then you shall know.’
“We were standing at the gate of the courtyard, breathing the fresh morning air. She left me, and returned to the house, whence Mr. Birchmore almost immediately issued, and saluted me with more than his usual cordiality. I wondered what his behaviour would have been had he known of the transactions of the past night, or of what was in store for us during the day! He began to talk about Kohlstein, and related several anecdotes of the bandits, by whom it was said formerly to have been inhabited. ‘I have been up there more than once,’ he remarked, ‘and the traces of their occupation are still visible. I remember one feature that particularly impressed me—a narrow cleft or chasm of considerable depth, into which the old fellows are said to have thrown their prisoners when they became refractory.’
“‘Would the fall kill them?’
“‘I should say not; the bottom seemed full of chopped brushwood and other such rubbish. But no human being could have got out unaided; and probably a day or two’s lonely sojourn there would bring the most resolute malcontent to terms. It would be a ghastly fate to fall in there, nowadays, and have one’s skeleton fished out again the following year, perhaps, and a sensational paragraph in the newspapers. You young folks must pick your steps carefully to-day.’
“‘Forewarned is forearmed!’ rejoined I, with a short laugh. Further conversation was cut short by a summons to breakfast. On this occasion Slurk waited at table, and I observed him with more than usual attention and toleration, as one with whom I was so soon to try desperate conclusions. He was certainly a villanous-looking character; but he appeared to be, for reasons best known to himself, in excellent spirits this morning; a circumstance which stirred up an unwilling kind of compassion within me, reflecting what a speedy and final end was going to be put to all his possibilities of enjoyment. Vile though his life had been, it was the only one he had.
“Kate likewise had the semblance of unusual gaiety, but I could see that it was either feigned, or the result of nervous excitement. And my judgment was justified when, after breakfast, she overtook me as I was on the way upstairs to my room to make my final preparations, and said, in a voice unsteady with emotion:
“‘Tom dear, you asked me why you might not leave your diamonds with Christina. You do not know what danger you were in last night! On my way back to my room I heard—two people talking together, and they mentioned your name; so I stopped and listened. One said: “The bolt is all right: I had better go in and risk it; he’ll be certain to be asleep by this time!” And then the other said: “He has his revolver; leave it to me; he believes he can trust me. To-morrow, when he goes out, I’ll get him to leave them with me for safety!” and then they both laughed. My darling, this house is a den of thieves!’
“‘Were the persons you heard—who were they?’
“‘Christina, and that creature she calls her father. Hush! there she comes. She must not see us together;’ and in a moment Kate had glided away. I went on up the stairs with a heavy heart. I would almost rather not have heard this last revelation; my confidence in my penetration had received a humiliating shock. To think that Christina’s innocent face and modest maidenly air concealed the heart of a thief, or, worse still, of a decoy-duck, was a blow to my vanity as well as to my faith in human nature. How artful she had been, when I fancied her most ingenuous and kind! And then it all at once flashed upon me—what if Heinrich Rudolph himself were in the plot! what if he had written them to be on the look-out for me! and what if Slurk, being secretly in league with him, had contrived to get the Birchmores, and me along with them, into the house, intending to divide the spoil with Herr Rudolph and Christina! Many signs seemed to point to this as a true deduction from the circumstances; and even as I was rather grimly considering the matter, a new confirmation of Kate’s discovery awaited me. Christina was standing at my room door, and, as I came up, she curtsied and said: