Stephanie was staring at him with wide-open eyes. "You would not"----she exclaimed, and then she paused.
"Yes, I would, and will," he answered with a sinister smile. "I and certain friends of mine have planned to make that box our own. The whole scheme is cut and dried; all the arrangements in connection with the journey are known to us; and so carefully have our plans been worked out, that it is next to impossible that we should fail."
"And you, George Crofton, my husband, have sunk to this--that you would become a common robber, a thief, a voleur!"
His face darkened ominously, and the gash in his lip looked as large again as it usually did. "What would you have?" he asked with a snarl. "My cursed ill-luck has driven me to it. I cannot starve, neither will I."
For a little while neither spoke.
"I didn't think you would take my news like this, Steph," he said presently. "Think of the prize! How is it possible for a man fixed as I am to resist trying to make it his own? One half comes to me because the plan is mine, but of course I can't work without confederates. My share will be worth ten thousand at the very least; and then, hey presto for the New World and a fresh start in life with a clean slate!--What say you, Steph?"
"At present, I say nothing more than I have said already," she answered coldly. "I must have time to think."
[CHAPTER XIII.]
Cummerhays, in one of the most northerly of the northern counties of England, although it considers itself to be a place of no small importance, has not the good fortune to be situated on any of the great main lines of railway; consequently, to most people it has the air of being somewhat out of the world. Of late years, however, a branch line has found it out, and has thereby enabled it to emerge from the state of semi-torpor in which it seemed destined to languish for ever. The branch line in question, of which Cummerhays is the terminus, is about twenty miles in length, and leaves the main line at Greenholm Station. About halfway between the two places, but about a couple of miles distant from the line itself, are certain important collieries, to meet the requirements of which a secondary branch has been constructed, which turns abruptly from the main branch at a point dignified with the euphonious title of Cinder Pit Junction. Here a signalman's box has been fixed, a wooden erection, standing about six feet above the ground, with an arrangement of levers inside it, for working the points and signals in connection with the traffic to and from the collieries. At the time of which we write two men were stationed at the box in question, who came on duty turn and turn about, in each case a week of day-duty alternating with one of night-duty. The cottage of one of the signalmen was about half a mile from the box, on the road leading to the collieries; while that of his "mate" was about a quarter of a mile down the road in an opposite direction.
Into this second cottage, which stood by itself in a lane a little removed from the high-road, and having no habitation near it, we will venture, Asmodeus-like, to take a peep on a certain April evening. It was already dusk in the valleys, although a soft rosy light still made beautiful the tops of the distant fells.