"I'll do weel to keep the Doecument," he thought to himself.

"Wha knows but there'll be a reward offered for it ane o' these days?
Eh! eh! there may be the warth o' a fi' pun' note in this, to a puir lad like me!" With that comforting reflection, he drew out a battered tin cash-box from the inner recesses of the drawer, and locked up the stolen correspondence to bide its time.
The storm rose higher and higher as the evening advanced.
In the sitting-room, the state of affairs, perpetually changing, now presented itself under another new aspect.
Arnold had finished his dinner, and had sent it away.

He had next drawn a side-table up to the sofa on which Anne lay--had shuffled the pack of cards--and was now using all his powers of persuasion to induce her to try one game at _Ecarte_ with him, by way of diverting her attention from the tumult of the storm.

In sheer weariness, she gave up contesting the matter; and, raising herself languidly on the sofa, said she would try to play.

"Nothing can make matters worse than they are," she thought, despairingly, as Arnold dealt the cards for her.