"Aha! are you
there, Miles Coverdale? You have been turning night into day since
you left us, I reckon; and so you find it quite natural to come
prowling about the house at this time o' night, frightening my old
woman out of her wits, and making her disturb a tired man out of his
best nap. In with you, you vagabond, and to bed!"
"Dress yourself quickly, Foster," said I. "We want your assistance."
I could not, for the life of me, keep that strange tone out of my
voice. Silas Foster, obtuse as were his sensibilities, seemed to
feel the ghastly earnestness that was conveyed in it as well as
Hollingsworth did. He immediately withdrew his head, and I heard him
yawning, muttering to his wife, and again yawning heavily, while he
hurried on his clothes. Meanwhile I showed Hollingsworth a delicate
handkerchief, marked with a well-known cipher, and told where I had
found it, and other circumstances, which had filled me with a
suspicion so terrible that I left him, if he dared, to shape it out
for himself. By the time my brief explanation was finished, we were
joined by Silas Foster in his blue woollen frock.
"Well, boys," cried he peevishly, "what is to pay now?"
"Tell him, Hollingsworth," said I.
Hollingsworth shivered perceptibly, and drew in a hard breath betwixt
his teeth. He steadied himself, however, and, looking the matter
more firmly in the face than I had done, explained to Foster my
suspicions, and the grounds of them, with a distinctness from which,
in spite of my utmost efforts, my words had swerved aside.
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