And then, when he
did, the revelation had been made so much by degrees, that the boy was
hardly shocked to find that his friend was a house-breaker and a highway
robber.
Long before he had formed a plan to rob the house of Mr. Trevlyn. It was
a field that promised well. Mr. Trevlyn, with the idiosyncrasy of age,
had invested most of his fortune in diamonds, and these he kept in a
chamber in his house. His chief delight consisted in gloating over
these precious stones. Night after night he would sit handling his
diamonds, chuckling over his wealth, and threatening imaginary plunderers
with destruction.
So, his servants said, and Sharp repeated the story to Arch with sundry
variations and alterations suited to the case. He had a persuasive
tongue, and it is little wonder that the boy, hating his grandfather as
he did, and resolved as he was upon revenging his father's wrongs, should
fall into the snare. He wanted Mr. Trevlyn to suffer--he did not care
how. If the loss of his diamonds would be to him a severer blow than any
other, then let it fall.
Sharp used many specious arguments to induce Arch to become his
accomplice in robbing the Trevlyn mansion, but the only one which
had any weight was that he could thus revenge his father's wrongs.
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