He drank another glass of wine, and then looked at the letter again; but at length, after yet another glass, curiosity got the better of his moodiness, and he opened the epistle.
The first sight of the contents dispelled not only his indifference but the effects of the wine he had taken, and he read the letter with an eager and a haggard eye. The substance was as follows:
"All is lost and discovered. I can but write you a very short account of the things that have been happening here, for I am under what these people call the surveillance of the police. I have got a few minutes, however, and I will pay the maid secretly to give this to the post. Never was such a time as I have had this morning. Four men have been here, and among them Atkinson, who lived just down below at the cottage with the gray shutters. He knew me in a minute, and told everybody who I was. But that is not the worst of it, for they have got a commissioner of police with him--a terrible looking man, who took as much snuff as Mr. Jenkins, the justice of peace. They had got all sorts of information in England about me, and you, and every body, and they came to me to give them more, and cross-questioned me in a terrible manner; and that ugly old Commissioner, in his black coat and great wig, took my keys, and opened all the drawers and places. What could I do to stop them? So they got all your letters to me; because I could not bear to burn my dear boy's letters, and that letter from old Sir John to my poor father, which I once showed you. So when they got all those, there was no use of trying to conceal it any more, and, besides, they might have sent me to the Bastile or the Tower of London. So every thing has come out, and the best thing you can do is to take whatever money you have got, or can get, and run away as fast as possible, and come over here and take me away. One of them was as fine a man as ever I saw, and quite a gentleman, though very severe.
"Pray, my dear John, don't lose a moment's time, but run away before they catch you; for they know every thing now, depend upon it, and nothing will stop them from hanging you or sending you to the colonies that you can do; for they have got all the proofs, and I could see by their faces that they wanted nothing more; and if they do, my heart will be quite broken, that is, if they hang you or send you to the colonies, where you will have to work like a galley-slave, and a man standing over you with a whip, beating your bare back very likely. So run away, and come to your afflicted mother."