"If I hadn"t felt her warm to touch, I should have been dreaming to-night that I"d seen Mary"s ghost." This was the grim fancy which darkly troubled Mat"s mind, at the very same moment when Madonna was thinking how cold his hand was. He turned away impatiently from some wine offered to him just then by Zack; and, looking vacantly into the fire, drew his coat-cuff several times over his eyes and forehead.
The chill from the strange man"s hand still lingered icily about Madonna"s fingers, and made her anxious, though she hardly knew why, to leave the room. She advanced hastily to Valentine, and made the sign which indicated Mrs. Blyth, by laying her hand on her heart; she then pointed up-stairs. Valentine, understanding what she wanted, gave her leave directly to return to his wife"s room. Before Zack could make even a gesture to detain her, she had slipped out of the studio, after not having remained in it much longer than five minutes.
"Zack," whispered Mr. Blyth, as the door closed, "I am anything but pleased with you for bringing Madonna down-stairs. You have broken through all rule in doing so; and, besides that, you have confused your friend by introducing her to him without any warning or preparation."
"Oh, that doesn"t matter," interrupted young Thorpe. "He"s not the sort of man to want warning about anything. I apologize for breaking rules; but as for Mat--why, hang it, Blyth, it"s plain enough what has been wrong with him since supper came in! He"s fairly knocked up with doing Hercules for you. You have kept the poor old Guy for near two hours standing in one position, without a rag on his back; and then you wonder--"
"Bless my soul! that never occurred to me. I"m afraid you"re right,"
exclaimed Valentine. "Do let us make him take something hot and comfortable! Dear, dear me! how ought one to mix grog?"
Mr. Blyth had been for some little time past trying his best to compound a species of fiery and potential Squaw"s Mixture for Mat. He had begun the attempt some minutes before Madonna left the studio; having found it useless to offer any explanations to his inattentive guest of the meaning of the girl"s signs and gestures with the slate and tobacco-pouch. He had persevered in his hospitable endeavor all through the whispered dialogue which had just pa.s.sed between Zack and himself; and he had now filled the gla.s.s nearly to the brim, when it suddenly occurred to him that he had put sherry in at the top of the tumbler, after having begun with brandy at the bottom; also that he had altogether forgotten some important ingredient which he was, just then, perfectly incapable of calling to mind.
"Here, Mat!" cried Zack. "Come and mix yourself something hot. Blyth"s been trying to do it for you, and can"t."
Mat, who had been staring more and more vacantly into the fire all this time, turned round again at last towards his friends at the supper table. He started a little when he saw that Madonna was no longer in the room--then looked aside from the door by which she had departed, to the bureau. He had been pretty obstinately determined to get possession of the Hair Bracelet from the first: but he was doubly and trebly determined now.
"It"s no use looking about for the young lady," said Zack; "you behaved so clumsily and queerly, that you frightened her out of the room."
"No! no! nothing of the sort," interposed Valentine, good-naturedly.
"Pray take something to warm you. I am quite ashamed of my want of consideration in keeping you standing so long, when I ought to have remembered that you were not used to being a painter"s model. I hope I have not given you cold--"
"Given me cold?" repeated Mat, amazedly. He seemed about to add a sufficiently indignant a.s.sertion of his superiority to any such civilized bodily weakness, as a liability to catch cold--but just as the words were on his lips, he looked fixedly at Mr. Blyth, and checked himself.
"I am afraid you must be tired with the long sitting you have so kindly given me," added Valentine.
"No," answered Mat, after a moment"s consideration; "not tired. Only sleepy. I"d best go home. What"s o"clock?"
A reference to young Thorpe"s watch showed that it was ten minutes past ten. Mat held out his hand directly to take leave; but Valentine positively refused to let him depart until he had helped himself to something from the supper-table. Hearing this, he poured out a gla.s.s of brandy and drank it off; then held out his hand once more, and said good night.
"Well, I won"t press you to stay against your will," said Mr. Blyth, rather mournfully. "I will only thank you most heartily for your kindness in sitting to me, and say that I hope to see you again when I return from the country. Good bye, Zack. I shall start in the morning by an early train. Pray, my dear boy, be steady, and remember your mother and your promises, and call on Mr. Strather in good time to-morrow, and stick to your work, Zack--for all our sakes, stick to your work!"
As they left the studio, Mat cast one parting glance at the garden door.
Would the servant, who had most likely bolted and locked it early in the evening, go near it again, before she went to bed? Would Mr. Blyth walk to the bottom of the room to see that the door was safe, after he had raked the fire out? Important questions these, which only the events of the night could answer.
A little way down Kirk Street, at the end by which Zack and his friend entered it on returning from Mr. Blyth"s, stood the local theater--all ablaze with dazzling gas, and all astir with loitering blackguards.
Young Thorpe stopped, as he and his companion pa.s.sed under the portico, on the way to their lodgings further up the street.
"It"s only half-past ten, now," he said. "I shall drop in here, and see the last scenes of the pantomime. Won"t you come too?"
"No," said Mat; "I"m too sleepy. I shall go on home."
They separated. While Zack entered the theater, Mat proceeded steadily in the direction of the tobacco shop. As soon, however, as he was well out of the glare of gas from the theater door, he crossed the street; and, returning quickly by the opposite side of the way, took the road that led him back to Valentine"s house.
CHAPTER XII. THE HAIR BRACELET.
Mr. Blyth"s spirits sank apace, as he bolted and locked the front door, when his guests had left him. He actually sighed as he now took a turn or two alone, up and down the studio.
Three times did he approach close to the garden door, as he walked slowly from end to end of the room. But he never once looked up at it. His thoughts were wandering after Zack, and Zack"s friend; and his attention was keeping them company. "Whoever this mysterious Mat may be," mused Valentine, stopping at the fourth turn, and walking up to the fireplace; "I don"t believe there"s anything bad about him; and so I shall tell Mrs. Thorpe the next time I see her."
He set himself to rake out the fire, leaving only a few red embers and tiny morsels of coal to flame up fitfully from time to time in the bottom of the grate. Having done this, he stood and warmed himself for a little while, and tried to whistle a favorite tune. The attempt was a total failure. He broke down at the third bar, and ended lamentably in another sigh.
"What can be the matter with me? I never felt so miserable about going away from home before." Puzzling himself uselessly with such reflections as these, he went to the supper-table, and drank a gla.s.s of wine, picked a bit of a sandwich, and unnecessarily spoilt the appearance of two sponge cakes, by absently breaking a small piece off each of them. He was in no better humor for eating or drinking, than for whistling; so he wisely determined to light his candle forthwith, and go to bed.
After extinguis.h.i.+ng the lights that had been burning on the supper-table, he cast a parting glance all round the room, and was then about to leave it, when the drawing of the old five-barred gate, which he had taken down for Mat to look at, and had placed on a painting-stand at the lower end of the studio, caught his eye. He advanced towards it directly--stopped half-way--hesitated--yawned--s.h.i.+vered a little--thought to himself that it was not worth while to trouble about hanging the drawing up over the garden door, that night--and so, yawning again, turned on his heel and left the studio.
Mr. Blyth"s two servants slept up-stairs. About ten minutes after their master had ascended to his bed-room, they left the kitchen for their dormitory on the garret floor. Patty, the housemaid, stopped as she pa.s.sed the painting room, to look in, and see that the lights were out, and the fire safe for the night. Polly, the cook, went on with the bedroom candle; and, after having ascended the stairs as far as the first landing from the hall, discreetly bethought herself of the garden door, the general care and superintendence of which was properly attached to her department in the household.
"I say, did you lock the garden door?" said Polly to Patty through the banisters.
"Yes; I did it when I took up master"s tea," said Patty to Polly, appearing lazily in the hall, after one sleepy look round the fast-darkening studio.
"Hadn"t you better see to it again, to make sure?" suggested the cautious cook.
"Hadn"t _you?_ It"s _your_ place," retorted the careless house-maid.
"Hus.h.!.+" whispered Valentine, suddenly appearing on the landing above Polly, from his bedroom, arrayed in his flannel dressing-gown and nightcap. "Don"t talk here, or you"ll disturb your mistress. Go up to bed, and talk there. Good night."
"Good night, sir," answered together the two faithful female dependents of the house of Blyth, obeying their master"s order with simpering docility, and deferring to a future opportunity all further considerations connected with the garden door.
The fire was fading out fast in the studio grate. Now and then, at long intervals, a thin tongue of flame leapt up faintly against the ever-invading gloom, flickered for an instant over the brighter and more prominent objects in the room, then dropped back again into darkness.
The profound silence was only interrupted by those weird house-noises which live in the death of night and die in the life of day; by that sudden crackling in the wall, by that mysterious creaking in the furniture, by those still small ghostly sounds from inanimate bodies, which we have all been startled by, over and over again, while lingering at our book after the rest of the family are asleep in bed, while waiting up for a friend who is out late, or while watching alone through the dark hours in a sick chamber. Excepting such occasional night-noises as these, so familiar, yet always so strange, the perfect tranquillity of the studio remained undisturbed for nearly an hour after Mr. Blyth had left it. No neighbors came home in cabs, no bawling drunken men wandered into the remote country fastnesses of the new suburb. The night-breeze, blowing in from the fields, was too light to be audible.
The watch-dog in the nurseryman"s garden hard by, was as quiet on this particular night as if he had actually barked himself dumb at last.
Outside the house, as well as inside, the drowsy reign of old primeval Quiet was undisturbed by the innovating vagaries of the rebel, Noise.
Undisturbed, till the clock in the hall pointed to a quarter past eleven. Then there came softly and slowly up the iron stairs that led from the back garden to the studio, a sound of footsteps. When these ceased, the door at the lower end of the room was opened gently from outside, and the black bulky figure of Mat appeared on the threshold, lowering out gloomily against a back-ground of starry sky.
He stepped into the painting-room, and closed the door quietly behind him; stood listening anxiously in the darkness for a moment or two; then pulling from his pocket the wax taper and the matches which he had bought that afternoon, immediately provided himself with a light.
While the wick of the taper was burning up, he listened again. Except the sound of his own heavy breathing, all was quiet around him. He advanced at once to the bureau, starting involuntarily as he brushed by Mr. Blyth"s lay figure with the Spanish hat and the Roman toga; and cursing it under his breath for standing in his way, as if it had been a living creature. The door leading from the studio into the pa.s.sage of the house was not quite closed; but he never noticed this as he pa.s.sed to the bureau, though it stood close to the c.h.i.n.k left between the door and the post. He had the false key in his hand; he knew that he should be in possession of the Hair Bracelet in another moment; and, his impatience for once getting the better of his cunning, he pounced on the bureau, without looking aside first either to the right or the left.
He had unlocked it, had pulled open the inner drawer, had taken out the Hair Bracelet, and was just examining it closely by the light of his taper (after having locked the bureau again)--when a faint sound on the staircase of the house caught his ear.
At the same instant, a thin streak of candle-light flashed on him through the narrow c.h.i.n.k between the hardly-closed door and the doorpost. It increased rapidly in intensity, as the sound of softly-advancing footsteps now grew more and more distinct from the stone pa.s.sage leading to the interior of the house.
He had the presence of mind to extinguish his taper, to thrust the Hair Bracelet into his pocket, and to move across softly from the bureau (which stood against the lock-side doorpost) to the wall (which was by the hinge-side doorpost); so that the door itself might open back upon him, and thus keep him concealed from the view of any person entering the room. He had the presence of mind to take these precautions instantly; but he had not self-control enough to suppress the involuntary exclamation which burst from his lips, at the moment when the thin streak of candle-light first flashed into his eyes. A violent spasmodic action contracted the muscles of his throat. He clenched his fist in a fury of suppressed rage against himself, as he felt that his own voice had turned traitor and betrayed him.
The light came close: the door opened--opened gently, till it just touched him as he stood with his back against the wall.
For one instant his heart stopped; the next, it burst into action again with a heave, and the blood rushed hotly through every vein all over him, as his wrought-up nerves of mind and body relaxed together under a sense of ineffable relief. He was saved almost by a miracle from the inevitable consequence of the rash exclamation that had escaped him. It was Madonna who had opened the door--it was the deaf and dumb girl whom he now saw walking into the studio.
She had been taking her working materials out of the tobacco-pouch in her own room before going to bed, and had then missed her mother-of-pearl bodkin-case. Suspecting immediately that she must have dropped it in the studio, and fearing that it might be trodden on and crushed if she left it there until the next morning, she had now stolen downstairs by herself to look for it. Her hair, not yet put up for the night, was combed back from her face, and hung lightly down in long silky folds over her shoulders. Her complexion looked more exquisitely clear and pure than ever, set off as it was by the white dressing-gown which now clothed her. She had a pretty little red and blue china candlestick, given to her by Mrs. Blyth, in her hand; and, holding the light above her, advanced slowly from the studio doorway, with her eyes bent on the ground, searching anxiously for the missing bodkin-case.
Mat"s resolution was taken the moment he caught sight of her. He never stirred an inch from his place of concealment, until she had advanced three or four paces into the room, and had her back turned full upon him. Then quietly stepping a little forward from the door, but still keeping well behind her, he blew out her candle, just as she was raising it over her head, and looking down intently on the floor in front of her.
He had calculated, rightly enough, on being able to execute this maneuver with impunity from discovery, knowing that she was incapable of hearing the sound of his breath when he blew her candle out, and that the darkness would afterwards not only effectually s.h.i.+eld him from detection, but also oblige her to leave him alone in the room again, while she went to get another light. He had not calculated, however, on the serious effect which the success of his stratagem would have upon her nerves, for he knew nothing of the horror which the loss of her sense of hearing caused her always to feel when she was left in darkness; and he had not stopped to consider that by depriving her of her light, he was depriving her of that all-important guiding sense of sight, the loss of which she could not supply in the dark, as others could, by the exercise of the ear.