Mr. Spencer had
gone West for the winter. The servants had been dismissed, and the
place closed. Only that morning I had heard one of his boon
companions say, "Oh, Jack's done for. He's found a pretty widow in
the Sierras, and there's no knowing now when we'll drink his
health again in Spencer's Folly:" a statement which wakened but
one picture in my mind and that was a long stretch of empty rooms
teeming with art treasures amid which one gem rose supreme--the
gem which through his reckless carelessness, I now proposed to
make my own, if loving fingers and the responsive clay would allow
it.
What to every other person in town would have seemed an
insuperable obstacle to this undertaking, was no obstacle to me.
_I_ KNEW HOW TO GET IN. One day in my restless wanderings about a
place which had something of the nature of a shrine to me, I had
noticed that one of the windows (a swinging one) overlooking the
ravine, moved as the wind took it. Either the lock had given way
or it had not been properly fastened. If I could only bring myself
to disregard the narrowness of the ledge separating the house from
the precipice beneath, I felt that I could reach this window and
sever the vines sufficiently for my body to press in; and this I
did that night, finding, just as I had expected, that once a
little force was brought to bear upon the sash, it yielded easily,
offering a free passage to the delights within.
In all this I experienced little fear, but once inside, I began to
realise the hazard of my adventure, as hanging at full length from
the casement, I meditated on the drop I must take into what to my
dazed eyes looked like an absolute void.
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