"Good Heaven!" she exclaimed, with a kind of disappointment. "You are
rich, then? and I have lost the felicity of making my generous friend
more happy. Be it so! since so it must be. Let us contribute, each, in
equal shares, to our common fund. Bring you, your money; I, my jewels.
There is a happiness to me even in mingling my resources with yours."
On this there followed a romantic colloquy, all poetry and passion, such
as I should in vain endeavor to reproduce. Then came a very special
instruction.
"I have come provided, too, with a key, the use of which I must
explain."
It was a double key--a long, slender stem, with a key at each end--one
about the size which opens an ordinary room door; the other as small,
almost, as the key of a dressing-case.
"You cannot employ too much caution tomorrow night. An interruption
would murder all my hopes. I have learned that you occupy the haunted
room in the Dragon Volant. It is the very room I would have wished you
in. I will tell you why--there is a story of a man who, having shut
himself up in that room one night, disappeared before morning. The truth
is, he wanted, I believe, to escape from creditors; and the host of the
Dragon Volant at that time, being a rogue, aided him in absconding. My
husband investigated the matter, and discovered how his escape was made.
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