24/30 People whose word is to be trusted are generally slow to give it. Claudius bowed his head courteously, in acknowledgment of the plighted promise. Then he opened a trunk that stood in a corner of the room, and took from it the iron box in which he had deposited the lawyer's letter on that evening three months before, when his destiny had roused itself from its thirty years' slumber. He set the box on the table, and having locked the door of the room sat down opposite his guest. He took a key from his pocket. |