"
'The last words, I ought to say, are a device which Abbot Thomas had
adopted. I found it with his arms in another piece of glass at Lord
D----'s, and he drafted it bodily into his cipher, though it doesn't
quite fit in point of grammar.
'Well, what would any human being have been tempted to do, my dear
Gregory, in my place? Could he have helped setting off, as I did, to
Steinfeld, and tracing the secret literally to the fountain-head? I don't
believe he could. Anyhow, I couldn't, and, as I needn't tell you, I found
myself at Steinfeld as soon as the resources of civilization could put me
there, and installed myself in the inn you saw. I must tell you that I
was not altogether free from forebodings--on one hand of disappointment,
on the other of danger. There was always the possibility that Abbot
Thomas's well might have been wholly obliterated, or else that someone,
ignorant of cryptograms, and guided only by luck, might have stumbled on
the treasure before me. And then'--there was a very perceptible shaking
of the voice here--'I was not entirely easy, I need not mind confessing,
as to the meaning of the words about the guardian of the treasure. But,
if you don't mind, I'll say no more about that until--until it becomes
necessary.
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