He drew her across the room till they stood before the cupboard. “Do you see a box?” he demanded, hardly able to articulate the words in his haste. “Ay? Then do you look in it, girl! Look in it. What is there in it? Tell me, girl. Tell me quick! What is in it?”
The box, its lid raised, stood on the shelf before him, and he laid his trembling hand on it. She looked into it. “It is empty, sir,” she said.
“Empty? Quite empty?”
“Yes, sir, quite empty.”
“Nothing in it?” desperately. “Are you sure, girl? Can you see nothing? Nothing?”
“Nothing, sir, I am quite sure,” she said. “There is nothing in it.”
“No papers?”
“No, sir, no papers.”
An idea seemed to strike him. “They may ha’ fallen on the floor,” he exclaimed. “Look! Look all about, girl! Look! Ah,” and there was something like agony in the cry, “curse this blindness! I am helpless, helpless as a child! Can you see no papers—on the floor, wench! Thin papers? No? Nor on the shelves?”
“No, sir. There is the lease you signed on Saturday. That is all.”