Part 30 (1/2)

All night she sat awake huddled under her greatcoat in the chilly darkness. She could not lie down, she could not close her eyes. At long intervals she heard the tread of unshod feet along the hall, and then she held her breath lest at her slightest stir they approach her door.

Why, since he wanted the sapphire, hadn't he tried to get it from her when he had had her unawares, upon her threshold with the house asleep?

It began to seem to her as if he were waiting, as if he were forced to wait, for some appointed moment. She knew if it were his moment it would be hers, too, as long as she had the sapphire upon her. She recalled fearfully the moment when she had crouched against the window with her hand protecting the jewel, and Harry's hand grasping her wrist. He would know well enough where to find it now. Oh, the restless unconcealable thing! Where could she hide it?

She took the pear-shaped pouch that swung always before her on her long gold chain. She had repudiated that hiding-place before, but now the more obvious the better--now that both men supposed she carried the jewel far hidden out of sight. Without moving from the bed where she was crouched, cramped and cold, she made the exchange, leaving the chain still around her neck, dropping the jewel into the pouch, where it would swing free, so carelessly dangling as to be beyond suspicion, but never beyond the reach of her hand.

It was a pale, splendid dawning full of clouds when she feel asleep.

Broad sunlight filled her room when she was awakened by a knocking at her door. She sprang from the bed and went to it. She was not to be come in upon by any unwelcome visitor. But it was Mrs. Herrick; and Flora, with a murmur of relief, since this was the one person she did want to see, drew her inside.

”Why, my child, you haven't slept, at least not properly.” Mrs. Herrick herself looked anxious and weary. ”I've come to tell you that Mrs.

Britton is here. She came an hour ago.”

”Where is she?”

”In the breakfast-room with Mr. Cressy.”

”Oh,” Flora cried, ”you know I didn't expect them. I didn't want them.

It wasn't for them I asked you to come.”

”But can't you tell me what it is you're afraid of?” the other urged.

”Between us can't we prevent it? Is there nothing I can do to help you?”

”Ah, if you knew how much you have already helped me by just being here.”

Her companion laughed a little. ”Can't I do something more active than that?”

Flora pondered. ”Where is Mr. Kerr?”

”In the garden, in the willow walk.”

”Do you think you can manage that the others don't get at him?”

”I can; if he doesn't want to get at them,” Mrs. Herrick replied.

”Against a man like that, my dear,” she aimed it gravely at Flora, ”one can do nothing.”

But Flora had no answer for the warning. ”I must see Clara immediately,”

she said.

”But not without breakfast,” Mrs. Herrick protested. ”I will send you up something. Remember that _she_ never abuses herself, so she's always fresh--and so she's always equal to the occasion.”

Mrs. Herrick went. Flora looked into the mirror. Almost for the first time in ten days she thought of her appearance. If it was, as Mrs.

Herrick said, a factor of success, something must be done for it, for it was dreadful. The best she could do revived a pale replica of the vivid creature who had been wont to regard her from her gla.s.s. Yet her black gown, thin and trailing far behind her, and her hair wound high, by very force of their contrasted color gave her a real brilliance as they gave her a seeming height. But she descended to the breakfast-room with trepidation, and stood a full minute before the door gathering courage to go in.

When she did open it, it was so suddenly that both occupants faced her with a start. They were standing close together, and between them, on the glare of the white table-cloth, lay a little heap of gold. As they peered at her she saw that both were highly excited, but in Clara it showed like a cold sparkle; in Harry it gloomed like a menace. His hand hovered, clenched, above the money in a panic of irresolution; then, as if with an involuntary relax of nerves, opened and let fall one last piece of gold. Like a flash the whole disappeared in a sweep of Clara's hand. It pa.s.sed before Flora's eyes like a prestidigitator's trick, so rapid as to seem unreal, and left her staring. Harry gave Clara a look, half suspicious, half entreating; and then, to Flora's astonishment, turned away without a word to either of them.

Clara stood still, even after the door had closed upon Harry, and oddly, and rather horridly, she wore the same aspect she had worn the day when she had looked intently and absorbedly upon the rifled contents of Flora's room.