Part 23 (1/2)
She stood looking down into the box for a minute, then, as if impelled by some irresistible impulse, she laid the priceless stones all in a heap upon the table, when, taking hold of a loop, which had escaped the housekeeper's notice, she lifted the cus.h.i.+on from its place, thus revealing the papers which had been concealed beneath it.
She seized the uppermost one with an eager hand.
”I believe I will destroy it,” she mused, ”I am afraid there is something more in his desire to possess it than he is willing to admit, for he is so determined to get possession of it.”
She half unfolded the doc.u.ment as if to examine it, when a sudden shock went quivering through her frame and a look of amazement overspread her face.
”What can this mean?” she exclaimed, in a tone of alarm, as she dashed it upon the floor and seized another.
This also proved disappointing.
”It was here the last time I looked! I am sure I left it on top of the others!” she muttered, with white lips, as, with trembling hands and heaving bosom, she overturned everything in search of the missing doc.u.ment.
But the most rigid examination failed to reveal it, and, with a cry of mingled agony and anger, she sank weak and trembling upon the nearest chair.
”It is gone!” she whispered, hoa.r.s.ely; ”some one has stolen it!”
She sat there looking utterly helpless and wretched for a few moments.
Then her eyes began to blaze and her lips to twitch spasmodically.
”He has done this!” she cried, starting to her feet once more. ”That was why he was absent so long from the ball-room to-night.”
Seizing the papers she had removed from the box, she hastily replaced them, also the cus.h.i.+on, restoring the jewels to their places, after which she shut and locked the casket, taking care to remove the key from its lock.
This done, she hurried from the room, looking more like a beautiful fiend than a woman.
CHAPTER XVII.
”WOULD YOU DARE BE FALSE TO ME, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS?”
With her exquisite robe trailing unheeded after her, Anna G.o.ddard swept swiftly down the hall and rapped imperatively upon the door of her husband's room.
There was no answer from within.
She tried the handle. The door would not yield--it was locked on the inside.
”Gerald, are you in bed?” his wife inquired, putting her lips to the crack and speaking low.
”What do you wish, Anna?” the man questioned.
”I wish to see you--I must speak with you, even if you have retired,”
she returned, imperatively.
There was a slight movement within the room, then the door was thrown open, and Gerald G.o.ddard stood before her.
But she shrank back almost immediately, a low exclamation of surprise escaping her as she saw his face, so white, so pain-drawn, and haggard.
”Gerald! what is the matter?” she demanded, forgetting, for the moment, her own anger and even her errand there, in the anxiety which she experienced for him.