Explore "The Great House" by Stanley J. Weyman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Basset had obtained the missing Bible very much in the way the lawyer had indicated-partly by purchase and partly by pressure. Shocked as Toft had been by his master's sudden death, he had had the presence of mind to remember that he might make something of what they had discovered could he secrete it; and with every nerve quivering the man had fought down panic until he had hidden the parcel which had caused John Audley's collapse. Then he had given way. He had turned his back on the Great House, and shuddering, clutched at by grisly hands, pursued by phantom feet, he had fled through the night and the Yew Walk, to hide, for the present at least, his part in the tragedy.
Basset, however, had known too much for him, and the servant, shaken by what had happened, had not been able to persist in his denials. But to tell and to give were two things, and it is doubtful whether he would have released his plunder if Basset had not in the last resort disclosed to him Miss Audley's engagement to her cousin.