CHAPTER XXXIII 482
" It is a large sum -- don ' t you think there is a mistake ?"
" No mistake at all ." " Perhaps you have read the figures wrong -- it may be two thousand !" " It is written in letters , not figures , -- twenty thousand ."
I again felt rather like an individual of but average gastronomical powers sitting down to feast alone at a table spread with provisions for a hundred . Mr . Rivers rose now and put his cloak on .
" If it were not such a very wild night ," he said , " I would send Hannah down to keep you company : you look too desperately miserable to be left alone . But Hannah , poor woman ! could not stride the drifts so well as I : her legs are not quite so long : so I must e ' en leave you to your sorrows . Good-night ."
He was lifting the latch : a sudden thought occurred to me . " Stop one minute !" I cried .
" Well ?"
" It puzzles me to know why Mr . Briggs wrote to you about me ; or how he knew you , or could fancy that you , living in such an out-of-the-way place , had the power to aid in my discovery ."
" Oh ! I am a clergyman ," he said ; " and the clergy are often appealed to about odd matters ." Again the latch rattled .
" No ; that does not satisfy me !" I exclaimed : and indeed there was something in the hasty and unexplanatory reply which , instead of allaying , piqued my curiosity more than ever .
" It is a very strange piece of business ," I added ; " I must know more about it ."