"
"Will you submit to some personal inconvenience for a time?"
"To any inconvenience, no matter what it may be."
"Will you be guided implicitly by my advice? It may expose you to the
ridicule of fools; it may subject you to the remonstrances of friends
whose opinions you are bound to respect."
"Tell me what to do!" I broke out impatiently. "And, come what may, I'll
do it."
"You shall do this, Mr. Blake," he answered. "You shall steal the
Diamond, unconsciously, for the second time, in the presence of
witnesses whose testimony is beyond dispute."
I started to my feet. I tried to speak. I could only look at him.
"I believe it CAN be done," he went on. "And it shall be done--if you
will only help me. Try to compose yourself--sit down, and hear what I
have to say to you. You have resumed the habit of smoking; I have seen
that for myself. How long have you resumed it."
"For nearly a year."
"Do you smoke more or less than you did?"
"More."
"Will you give up the habit again? Suddenly, mind!--as you gave it up
before."
I began dimly to see his drift. "I will give it up, from this moment," I
answered.
"If the same consequences follow, which followed last June," said Ezra
Jennings--"if you suffer once more as you suffered then, from sleepless
nights, we shall have gained our first step.
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