"'To-morrow we had planned to go to Kohlstein for a picnic. It's a great, immense rock, where robbers lived hundreds of years ago. Hardly anyone ever goes there now. I have been there, and I remember that on the top it is full of deep clefts and holes; and I thought how, if anyone were to fall into one, they might lie there for months without being found; and they could never get out of themselves. So now--listen! We will go up there--you and I and--he; and I will lead him near the brink of one of those clefts, and then you must rush forward and take him, and drop him down--down to the bottom! So we shall get what we want, and yet there need be no murder.' "'Not be murder, Kate?' "'It need not be; for when he was safe down there, rather than be left to starve, he would give up those papers. Don't you think he would?' "She was trembling with excitement, and her state communicated itself in some degree to me, so that I was scarcely able to think coherently. But there certainly seemed to be plausibility in her scheme; at the worst, it would be better than shooting the man outright. But would the recovery of the papers put an end to Slurk's persecution of Kate as well as of her father? Would not his power over her remain? "'But we can have him imprisoned then, you see,' was her answer to my objection; 'and for fear of that, he would never dare to trouble me again. He would have been in prison long ago but for the papers.' "'It certainly seems a good plan,' I said, after a confused attempt to turn the matter over in my mind. 'We'll ask your father's opinion to-morrow.' "'Oh, he must know nothing of it!' she exclaimed, with a gesture of vehement dissent. 'He would betray it. You don't know how--what a power that villain has over him. Slurk treats him like a child when they are alone. No, Tom; we must do it all ourselves, or it will fail. Only when it is done will dear papa get back his courage.'