Margari accomplished the task with tolerable dexterity. He only broke the looking-glass while he was opening the casket, and that was little enough for him. There the documents were right enough, nicely tied together.
And then Henrietta seized his hand and pressed it so warmly and looked at him with her lovely, piteous, imploring eyes—a very lunatic might have been healed by such a look.
"I know you for an honourable man," continued she, "promise me not to look at these papers, but give them to my brother Koloman, he will know what to do with them. You will do this for my sake, dear Margari, will you not? It is just as though one of the dead were to come back to you from the world beyond the grave and implore you, with desperate supplications, to free its soul from a thought which rested upon it like a curse and would not let it rest in the grave."
Margari shuddered at these words. A corpse that returns from the world beyond the grave! This young gentlewoman certainly had a terrifying imagination. Nevertheless he swore by his hope of salvation that he would not bestow a glance upon the papers, but would give them to young Koloman.
"Hide them, pray!"
And indeed it was high time that he should bestow them in the well-like pocket of his long coat, for Clementina's steps were already audible in the adjoining chamber. When she appeared, however, he was sitting behind the curtain again, reading away as if nothing had happened.
When the clock struck four, at which time Koloman usually returned from school, Henrietta said to Margari that she had had enough of romance-reading for that day, but thanked him for his kindness and asked him to come again on the morrow if he would be so good. Margari protested that he should consider it the highest honour, the greatest joy. He would willingly read even English to her, if she liked, and without any special honorarium either, and then off he went to seek young Koloman.
Now it so happened that young Koloman did not come home at the usual time that day, and Margari after looking for him in vain became very curious as to the contents of the packet entrusted to him. What sort of mysterious letters could they be which Miss Henrietta was afraid of falling into the hands of her family. Hum! how nice it would be to find out!
The packet was tied up—naturally! But it was possible to undo and then retie the knots in just the same way as before, so that nobody would be any the wiser. To an honourable man, indeed, the mere knowledge that another's secret was concealed therein which he was bidden to guard would have been as invincible an impediment as unbreakable bolts and bars; but the worthy fellow reassured himself with the reflection that, after all, he was not going to tell anybody the contents of these documents, and he so very much longed to know what it could be that Miss Henrietta was so anxious to hide away, and old Lapussa would so much like to find out. As if he would ever betray the secret of such a nice, kindly creature to such an old dragon! Why, he would rather have his tongue torn out than betray it!—but know it he must and would!
So he locked himself up in his little room on the third storey, and very cautiously opened the bundle which was enwrapped in I know not how many folds of paper and greedily devoured the contents of the various documents.