For in spite of her obvious reluctance to tell me even necessary things, I was resolved to make her speak out. She hesitated, but finally yielded, when I pointed out that we must decide whether it came from a friendly or an unfriendly hand.
She handed it to me out of the pocket of her dress, the two of us standing all the while on the top of the tower, the rusty basket wheezing in the wind, and her blown hair whipping my cheek in the sharp breeze from the north.
I may say that just at that moment I was pretty content with myself. I do not deny that I had fancied this maid and that before, or that some few things that might almost be called tender had passed between me and Gerty Greensleeves, chiefly cuffing and pinching of the amicable Scottish sort. Only I knew for certain that now I was finally and irrevocably in love—but it was with a star. Or rather, it might just as well have been, for any hope I had with Miss Irma Maitland, with her ancient family and her eyes fairly snapping with pride. What could she ever have to say to the rather stupid son of a village school-master?
But I took the paper, and for an instant Irma’s eyes rested on mine with something different in them from anything I had ever seen there before. The contemptuous chill was gone. There was even a kind of soft appeal, which, however, she retracted and even seemed to excuse the next moment.
“Understand,” she said, “it is not for myself that I care. It is for—for my brother, Sir Louis.”
“But, Miss Irma, do not forget that I——” The words came bravely, but halted before the enormity of what I was going to say. So I had perforce to alter my formation in face of my dear enemy, and only continued lamely enough, “I had better see what the letter says.”
“Yes,” she answered shortly, “I suppose that is necessary.”
The letter was written on a sheet of common paper, ruled vertically in red at either side as for a bill of lading. It had simply been folded once, not sealed in the ordinary way, but thrust through sharply with the knife which had pinned it to the wood, traversing both folds. The knife, which I saw afterwards down-stairs, was a small one, with a broadish blade shaped and pointed like a willow leaf. I had it a good while in my hand, and I can swear that it had been lately used in cutting the commonest kind of sailor tobacco.
The message read in these words exactly, which I copied carefully on my killivine-tablets—
“The first danger is for this night, being the eve of Saint John. Admit no one excepting those who bring with them friends you can trust. Fear not to use the signal agreed upon. Help will be near.”