He asked the question so earnestly, and his face, now it could be seen by the strong light of the candle at his elbow, wore so curious an expression, that the rector was for a moment quite taken aback. “They are good people, are they not?” he said, wondering much.
“Oh, yes, the firm is good enough,” Jack answered impatiently. “But who gave you their address?”
“Clode,” the rector answered. “I went round to his lodgings and he wrote it down for me.”
“At his lodgings?” cried the barrister.
“To be sure.”
“Ah! then look here,” Jack replied, laying his hand on Lindo’s sleeve and looking up at him with an air of peculiar seriousness—“just tell me once more, so that I may have no doubt about it: Are you sure that from the time you docketed those letters until now you have never removed them—from this house, I mean?”
“Never!”
“Never let them go out of the house?”
“Never!” answered the rector firmly. “I am as certain of it as a man can be certain of anything.”
“Thanks!” Jack cried. “All right. Good night.” And that was all; for, turning abruptly, in a twinkling he had the door open and was gone, leaving the rector to go to bed in such a state of mystification as made him almost forget his fallen fortunes.