I understood my position from that moment,
geographically as well as physically. I was a prisoner in the house of
Basil Bainrothe (while he, perchance, reigned lordly in my own); that
house whose hidden arcana I had never explored, and which, beyond its
parlor and exterior, was to me as the dwelling of a stranger.
Derisively deferential, he had resigned to me this secluded chamber in
the ell--his own particular sanctum, I remember to have heard--and
betaken himself, in all probability, to the more spacious mansion of his
former neighbor.
Far wiser, even if sadder, than I went up its rounds, did I descend that
ladder!
Half an hour after I had entered it, and with new hope, I emerged from
the bath-room as fresh as a naiad, having first abstracted from the
tool-box of the glazier two tiny chisels of different sizes, and a
small lump of putty, which I secreted, on my first opportunity, in my
favorite hiding-place--a hollow in the post of my bedstead--an
accidental discovery of mine, made during Mrs. Clayton's first illness,
since which I had always insisted on making up my own bed, much to her
relief.
My conscience so disturbed me on the score of this theft, that I
hastened to secrete my only remaining piece of gold in the glazier's
box; ill-judged, as this appeared to me on reflection. The boy was an
apprentice, evidently, and might else, I thought, at the time, have been
the loser.
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