n, to say that he thought it was
time for a plain answer to be given to a business proposal. But, as he
had no great hope the reply would be favorable, he awaited it in a state
bordering on apathy. And so passed a miserable week.

And all this time she, for whose sake he denied himself the joy and
consolation of her company, though his heart ached and pined for it, had
hard thoughts of him, and vented them too to Jael Dence.

The young are so hasty in all their judgments.

While matters were in this condition, Henry found, one morning, two
fresh panes of glass broken in his window.

In these hardware works the windows seldom or never open: air is
procured in all the rooms by the primitive method of breaking a pane
here and a pane there; and the general effect is as unsightly as a
human mouth where teeth and holes alternate. The incident therefore was
nothing, if it had occurred in any other room; but it was not a thing to
pass over in this room, secured by a Bramah lock, the key of which was
in Henry's pocket: the panes must have been broken from the outside. It
occurred to him directly that a stone had been thrown in with another
threatening scrawl.

But, casting his eye all round, he saw nothing of the kind about.

Then, for a moment, a graver suspicion crossed his mind: might not some
detonating substance of a nature to explode when trodden upon, have been
flung in? Hillsborough excelled in deviltries of this kind.

Henry thought of his mother, and would not treat the matter lightly or
unsuspiciously. He stood still till he had lighted a lucifer match, and
examined the floor of his room. Nothing.

He lighted a candle, and examined all the premises. Nothing.

But, when he brought his candle to the window, he made a discovery: the
window had two vertical iron uprights, about three-quarters of an inch
in circumference: and one of these revealed to his quick eye a bright
horizontal line. It had been sawed with a fine saw.

Apparently an attempt had been made to enter his room from outside.

The next question was, had that attempt succeeded.

He tried the bar; it was not quite cut through.

He locked the forge up directly, and went to his handling room. There he
remained till Mr. Cheetham entered the works; then he went to him, and
begged him to visit his forge.

Mr. Cheetham came directly, and examined the place carefully.

He negatived, at once, the notion that any Hillsborough hand had been
unable to s