“I’ll never own it, in earth or hell,” he said to himself.

When he reached Matchin’s cottage, all was dark and still.  He tried to attract Maud’s attention by throwing soft clods of earth against her window, but her sleep was too sound.  He was afraid to throw pebbles for fear of breaking the panes and waking the family.  He went into the little yard adjoining the shop, and found a ladder.  He brought it out, and placed it against the wall.  He perceived now for the first time that his hands were sticky.  He gazed at them a moment.  “Oh, yes,” he said to himself, “when he fell I held out my hands to keep his head from touching my clothes.  Careless trick!  Ought to have washed them, first thing.”  Then, struck by a sudden idea, he went to the well-curb, and slightly moistened his fingers.  He then rubbed them on the door-knob, and the edge of the door of the cottage, and pressed them several times in different places on the ladder.  “Not a bad scheme,” he said, chuckling.  He then went again to the well, and washed his hands thoroughly, afterward taking a handful of earth, and rubbing them till they were as dirty as usual.

After making all these preparations for future contingencies, he mounted the ladder, and tried to raise the window.  It was already open a few inches to admit the air, but was fastened there, and he could not stir it.  He began to call and whistle in as low and penetrating a tone as he could manage, and at last awoke Maud, whose bed was only a few feet away.  She started up with a low cry of alarm, but saw in a moment who it was.

“Well, what on earth are you doing here?  Go away this minute, or I’ll call my father.”

“Let me in, and I will tell you.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort.  Begone this instant.”

“Maud, don’t be foolish,” he pleaded, in real alarm, as he saw that she was angry and insulted.  “I have done as you told me.  I have wealth for us both, and I have”—­he had almost betrayed himself, but he concluded—­“I have come to take you away forever.”

“Come to-morrow, at a decent hour, and I will talk to you.”

“Now, Maud, my beauty, don’t believe I am humbugging.  I brought a lot of money for you to look at—­I knew you wanted to be sure.  See here!” He drew from his pocket a package of bank bills—­he saw a glittering stain on them.  He put them in the other pocket of his coat and took out another package.  “And here’s another, I’ve got a dozen like them.  Handle ’em yourself.”  He put them in through the window.  Maud was so near that she could take the bills by putting out her hand.  She saw there was a large amount of money there—­more than she had ever seen before.

“Come, my beauty,” he said, “this is only spending-money for a bridal tour.  There are millions behind it.  Get up and put on your dress.  I will wait below here.  We can take the midnight train east, be married at Clairfield, and sail for Paris the next day.  That’s the world for you to shine in.  Come!  Waste no time.  No tellin’ what may happen tomorrow.”