Page:The Millbank Case - 1905 - Eldridge.djvu/183

 only one thing I keep thinking—thinking all the time," and his voice dropped, while he looked anxiously over his shoulder, as if he feared the very walls of his library: "and that is that it was safer to have those papers in his hands, so long as we knew that they were there, than it is to have them in the hands of somebody—we don't know who, for a purpose, we don't know what."

Charles grew paler than Henry had ever seen him. There was a gasp in his voice, as if he found breathing difficult, and he almost clutched at his brother as he said:

"That means that you are afraid, as I am, that the papers had some connection with his death, and you are trying to persuade yourself to the contrary. A month ago, you'd have jumped at the chance of somebody else having them, no matter who that somebody else might be: yet to-day you try to make me think that you believe it has increased the danger. You know better. I don't care whose hands they're in, we're safer than we were when Wing had them. Now it's only a question of money."

"Then why don't we hear from them?"