Should I retrace my steps in that direction?
No—not till I had seen something of the
room with the bright light, outside of which I
was now standing. I bent forward softly;
looking by little and little further and further
through the opening of the door, until my
head and shoulders were fairly inside the
room, and my eyes had convinced me that no
living soul, sleeping or waking, was in any
part of it at that particular moment. Impelled
by a fatal curiosity, I entered immediately,
and began to look about me with eager
eyes.

Iron ladles, large pans full of white
sand, files with white metal left glittering
in their teeth, moulds of plaster of Paris,
bags containing the same material in
powder, a powerful machine with the name
and use of which I was theoretically not
unacquainted, white metal in a partially-fused
state, bottles of aquafortis, dies scattered
over a dresser, crucibles, sandpaper, bars of
metal, and edged tools in plenty, of the
strangest construction. I was not at all a
particular man, as the reader knows by this
time; but when I looked at these objects, and
thought of Laura, I could not for the life of
me help shuddering. There was not the least
doubt about it, even after the little I had
seen: the important chemical pursuits to
which Doctor Knapton was devoting himself,
meant, in plain English and in one word—
Coining.

Did Laura know what I knew now, or did
she only suspect it? Whichever way I
answered that question in my own mind, I
could be no longer at any loss for an
explanation of her behaviour in the meadow by
the stream, or of that unnaturally gloomy,
downcast look which overspread her face
when her father's pursuits were the subject
of conversation. Did I falter in my resolution
to marry her, now that I had discovered
what the obstacle was which had made
mystery and wretchedness between us?
Certainly not. I was above all prejudices. I was
the least particular of mankind. I had no
family affection in my way—and, greatest
fact of all, I was in love. Under those
circumstances what Rogue of any spirit would
have faltered? After the first shock of the
discovery was over, my resolution to be Laura's
husband was settled more firmly than ever.

There was a little round table in a corner
of the room farthest from the door, which I
had not yet examined. A feverish longing
to look at everything within my reach—to
penetrate to the innermost recesses of the
labyrinth in which I had involved myself—
consumed me. I went to the table, and saw
upon it, ranged symmetrically side by side,
four objects which looked like thick rulers
wrapped up in silver paper. I opened the
paper at the end of one of the rulers, and
found that it was composed of half-crowns.

I had closed the paper again; and, was just
raising my head from the table over which
it had been bent, when my right cheek came
in contact with something hard and cold. I
started back—looked up—and confronted
Doctor Knapton, holding a pistol at my
right temple.

He, too, had his shoes off; he, too, had
come in without making the least noise.
He cocked the pistol without saying a
word. I felt that I was probably standing
face to face with death, and I
too said not a word. We two Rogues
looked each other steadily and silently in the
face—he, the mighty and prosperous villain,
with my life in his hands: I, the abject and
poor scamp, waiting his mercy.

It must have been some minutes after I
heard the click of the cocked pistol before
he spoke.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

The quiet commonplace terms in which he
put his question, and the perfect composure
and politeness of his manner, reminded me a
little of Gentleman Jones. But the doctor
was much the more respectable-looking man
of the two; his baldness was more
intellectual and benevolent; there was a delicacy
and propriety in the pulpiness of his fat
white chin, a bland bagginess in his
unwhiskered cheeks, a reverent roughness
about his eyebrows and fulness in his lower
eyelids, which raised him far higher,
physiognomically speaking, in the social scale,
than my old prison acquaintance. Put a
shovel-hat on Gentleman Jones, and the
effect would only have been eccentric; put
the same covering on the head of Doctor
Knapton, and the effect would have been
strictly episcopal.

"How did you get here?" he repeated,
still without showing the least irritation.

I told him how I had got in at the second-
floor window, without concealing a word of
the truth. The gravity of the situation, and
the sharpness of the doctor's intellects, as
expressed in his eyes, made anything like a
suppression of facts on my part a desperately
dangerous experiment.

"You wanted to see what I was about
up here, did you?" said he, when I had
ended my confession. "Do you know?"

The pistol barrel touched my cheek as he
said the last words. I thought of all the
suspicious objects scattered about the room,
of the probability that he was only putting
the question to try my courage, of the very
likely chance that he would shoot me forthwith,
if I began to prevaricate. I thought of
these things, and boldly answered:

"Yes, I do know."

He looked at me reflectively; then said,
in low, thoughtful tones, speaking, not to
me, but entirely to himself:

"Suppose I shoot him?"

I saw in his eye, that if I flinched, he
would draw the trigger.

"Suppose you trust me?" said I, without
moving a muscle.