“Open your eyes! Look! Look!” cried Kent heartily.
A strong trickle of sand flowed out of the rent in the sack and spread upon the ground.
“That is all,” said Kent.
Relief clamored within Sedgwick for expression. He began to laugh in short choking spasms.
“Quiet!” warned Mr. Blair, in a broken tone of appeal. “You’ve found out the secret. God knows what you’ll do with it. But there are innocent people in the house. I see a light stirring there now. We—I must do what I may to shelter them.”
A glimmer shone from the ground floor of one of the wings. Thither Mr. Blair ran, calling out as he went. When he returned, his face was like a mask.
“Now,” said he, “what is this matter? Blackmail?”
Kent’s face withdrew, as it were, behind his inscrutable half smile. “Peace, if you will,” said he. “A truce, at least.”
“I should like to know just how much you know.”
“An offer. I will tell you whenever you are ready to tell me all that you know. I think we are mutually in need of each other.”