den access of fear-stimulated strength ran through the hallway and pattered down the stairs as if there was danger of reconsideration behind.
“Now, Pietro, my friend,” Jimmy said quietly, “we'll light ourselves out with this lamp. You can lock this old crib that you doubtless rented for this festive night—the night when the Fratelli Nero celebrate, you remember—and we'll get Tomaso to lend us his gondola. You can row it, since you are so handy with an oar. Tomaso and I both know that. We've seen you work. And you, Tomaso, will then go to one of the night dispensaries and get a few stitches taken in your scalp. Tell them it was an accident. We've all agreed to keep our mouths shut about to-night. Come on!”
CHAPTER VIII.
JIMMY wrote the letter on a Hotel Danieli letterhead and then, after due thought, walked out, purchased plain paper and plain envelope at a shop and rewrote it. It ran:
Hon. Lemus, Harnway,
Venice.
My Dear Uncle: Certain circumstances have put me in a position concerning which I cannot at the moment confide; and I consider it not only sportsmanlike, but necessary, for me to warn you that I am involved in a conspiracy—and pledged to perform therein—directed against a certain possession of yours. I could not take this part without warning you that I must, for the time being at least, be regarded and treated as your enemy. For me not to warn you would be dishonorable. For me to tell you exactly what the conspiracy is would be equally dishonorable, because it would be a betrayal. If the day comes when I can win your forgiveness by confession, you will, I am certain, appreciate my predicament. Puzzling as this letter may seem, I feel that it is but fair, after having visited your house, to tell you frankly that you must be on your guard against me, or any with whom I am associated. I am, sir,
Most affectionately yours,
He tried to find other expressions less cryptic, weighed words and sentences, and then feeling that he had done his best, mailed it.
“I doubt if the old boy will ever forgive me if he learns the truth of this affair,” he ruminated after the letter was mailed, and half wished that he could recover it. “But Tommie wants that box and I've just got to help her get it. Her heart is set on it, and—confound the thing, anyhow! I wish old Yancey Powell had broken his arm before he ever got hold of it!”
He did not, however, make the most obvious and reasonable wish, that he had never met Miss Tommie Powell, his hereditary enemy by Kentucky feudal code. In fact, so recalcitrant to code was he that at that very hour of the morning he was eagerly waiting for her to appear for breakfast, and filled with a new idea for decorating her launch that he hoped might please her and prove his genius and fertility of invention. Between times he speculated curiously on what she had planned for Saturday night.
When she appeared, fresh, smiling, clad in summery white befitting the season and climate, and advanced to meet him, his heart thumped with the knowledge that she was glad to find him there and at least accepted him as a good comrade.
“Hello,” she said. “Wonder if I kept you waiting for breakfast? I'm lazy this morning. Had quite a party last night. Kept me up until all hours.”
“I was kept up rather late myself last night,” he admitted, making a dry private joke. “But all this is of no importance. I'm upset because you haven't yet confided your plans about how we are to get that silly casket.”
Her face lost its smile as the great pursuit recurred to her and she looked warily around as if apprehensive that his words had been overheard. He too looked but saw no one save Giuseppe loitering at a distance, and, out at the edge of the Schiavi wharf, Tomaso, with a bandage around his head, gravely watching him with a doglike fidelity.
She led the way inward to the breakfast room and to her accustomed table, and he followed. Perhaps as a subterfuge to avoid answering him she became engrossed in the bill of fare.
“That's got the same things on it that it had yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that—and so on,” he said, smiling at her. “Being blessed with a Kentucky appetite, you're going to take ham and eggs, the same as you did yesterday and the day before that, and the day”
“How do you know I am?” she retorted, throwing the card aside.
When she smiled he stubbornly, as was his way, reverted to his original point, the casket.
“See here,” she said, lifting her eyes to his—and for the moment they were troubled
