He peised the envelope in his hand for a moment, then broke the seal
very deliberately, took out the coins, and, as if weighing them in
his palm, turned back to the table and laid Mrs. Stimcoe's letter
close under the lamp while he searched for his gold-rimmed
spectacles. (There was a tradition at Stimcoe's, by the way, that
the London merchants, finding a small surplus of subscriptions in
hand after purchasing the sword of honour, had presented him with
these spectacles as a make-weight, and that he valued them no less.)

"Brooks," said he, laying down the letter and pushing the spectacles
high on his forehead while he gazed at me, "I want to ask you a
question in confidence. Had Mrs. Stimcoe any difficulty in finding
this money?"

"Well, sir," said I, "I oughtn't perhaps to know it, but she pawned
Stim--Mr. Stimcoe's Cicero this morning, the six volumes with a
shield on the covers, that he got as a prize at Oxford."

"Good Lord!" said Captain Branscome, slowly. As if in absence of
mind, he stepped to a side-cupboard and looked within. It was bare
but for a plate and an apple. He took up the apple, and was about to
offer it to me, but set it back slowly on the plate, and locked the
cupboard again. "Good Lord!" he repeated quietly, and, linking his
hands under his coat-tails, strode twice backwards and forwards
across the room.

Captain Coffin looked up from his charts and stared at him, and I,
too, stared, waiting in the semi-darkness beyond the lamp's circle.