"I would not," replied the widow. "Good-by, and may the Lord bless ye!"
"It was strange that she recognized me and the others did not," George was thinking to himself, as he approached the lonely orchard, whose path was rarely used except by the occupants of the two farms that bordered it. "It may have been the walk," he added.
The snow had melted so that he could find no trace of any one having been there before him on this day, but when he reached his hand back into the limb of the tree, he touched a paper. How it thrilled him! Now he would find out what things meant. There was something else there also, and stretching out his fingers, he grasped a leather bag, which clinked musically as he drew it forth. It was more gold! He hurried back to the inn, and climbed to the top of the wall. But what was his dismay and horror when he saw a figure on the roof bending on its knees trying to look into the window of his room! A light was burning brightly within.
George lowered himself cautiously and turned about the corner. What was he to do? How was he to regain the second story? The papers must be read at once.
George did not know that the man on the roof had caught sight of his head as he had drawn himself up to the top of the wall, and had called: "Hist! Blount! Oh, Blount!" in a low tone.
Then the stranger had crawled to the edge of the roof, and whispered again: "Hist! Number Four! I am Number Two."
But he looked and listened in vain for an answer, for at this moment George had disappeared in the darkness. He had not heard the hail.
With the agility of a sailor the small figure slid to the ground and walked away quickly. If the young spy had heard the footsteps he would have known that it was his old friend the schoolmaster.
When George reached the corner he leaned back against a buttress, puzzling what to do.
Then he remembered with a start the door in his room that he had opened thinking it would be a closet, but had discovered it to be a narrow stairway that led down into a sort of servants' hall off the kitchen. If he could gain it now he might be able to see within his apartment and find out what was going on. The man on the roof prevented him, of course, from getting back the way he left.