"But aren't you glad, girl, that we've got the villain fast? Isn't it sweet to you to feel that his turn has come at last? My wrongs are deep, but yours are deeper. You ought to exult in what I've done!"
"So I do, but I can hardly realize it yet. I keep on fancying it must all be a dream."
"It's an uncommon ugly reality as far as he's concerned," answered Pringle. "I don't think he'll trouble us long. I think another day and night will about finish him."
Gradually the warmth of the fire, and the brandy he had taken and was still taking, had a somnolent effect upon Pringle. He found his eyelids closing involuntarily.
"I don't think an hour or two's snooze would be a bad sort of thing," he said.
"Where is this strong-room that you talk about?" asked Jessie.
"Why, close by here--on the bottom floor--just at the end of that passage."
"Who should keep them but me? I've got them safe enough, never you fear," and he tapped his pocket to verify the fact.
He poured himself out some more brandy, and when he had drunk it she assisted him to the sofa, lowered the gas a little, and then took up her own position in the big easy-chair on the opposite side of the fireplace.
A few minutes later her father's deep, regular breathing told her that he was fast asleep.
Then she crossed noiselessly over to where he was lying, and began to feel for the pocket that held his keys. She was not long in finding what she wanted. Then she lighted a candle, and taking the candle-stick in one hand and the two keys in the other (after giving a last look at her father), she set out in search of the strong-room.
The little Dutch clock in the kitchen was on the stroke of eight when Jonas Pringle opened his eyes. He opened them, rubbed them, shut them, and opened them again. He might well stare and ask himself whether he had not taken leave of his senses. On a mattress in front of the kitchen fire, a coverlid thrown over him, lay the form of Max Van Duren. His eyes were shut and he was breathing heavily. Pringle was still staring at this terrible object, and trying to pull his wits together, when his attention was attracted by the noise of footsteps descending the stairs, and next moment Jessie ushered into the room a stranger, who at once crossed to where Van Duren was lying, and gazed fixedly down on him. The stranger was, in fact, a doctor whom Jessie had summoned by bribing a passing milk-boy to go and fetch him.