"It distracts my mind," continued Miss Duncan. "There are so many sad things that occur in life, that one would give anything in this world to be able to forget them."
"Have you had a great sorrow?" asked Jessie.
"So great that it has almost caused me to hate every woman," returned Miss Duncan; adding: "It was love that caused it all. You will do well, Miss Bain, if you never fall in love; for, at best, men are treacherous."
The girl flushed, wondering if the stranger had penetrated her secret.
But she had been so careful to hide from every one that she had fallen in love with handsome Hubert Varrick, it was almost impossible to guess it.
As Jessie Bain did not reply to the remark which she had just made, Miss Duncan went on hurriedly, "There is not one man in a thousand who proves true to the woman to whom he has plighted his troth. The next pretty face he sees turns his head. I should never want to marry a man, or even to be engaged to one if I knew that he had ever had another love.
"By the way," she asked, suddenly lowering her voice, "I am surprised to see Mr. Varrick looking so cheerful after the experience he has had with his love affair."
"He was too good for that proud heiress," Jessie declared, indignantly.
"I think Heaven intended that he should be spared from such a marriage.
I-- I fairly detest her name. Please do not let us talk about her, Miss Duncan. I like to speak well of people, but I can think of nothing save what is bad to say of her."
With this she rose hastily, excused herself, and hurried from the room, leaving her companion smarting from the stinging words that had fallen from her lips.
"The impudent creature!" fairly gasped the heiress, flinging aside her embroidery and pacing up and down the floor like a caged animal. "I shall take a bitter revenge on her for this, or my name is not Gerelda Northrup!"
The more she thought of it, the deeper her anger took root. They brought her a tempting little repast; but she pushed the tea-tray from her, leaving its contents untasted. She felt that food would have choked her.
The sun went down, and the moon rose clear and bright over the distant hills. One by one the lights in the Varrick mansion went out, and the clock in the adjacent steeple struck the hours until midnight. Still Gerelda Northrup paced up and down the narrow room, intent upon her own dark thoughts.
One o"clock chimed from the steeple, and another hour rolled slowly by; then suddenly she stopped short, and crossed the room to where her satchel lay on the wide window-sill. Opening it, she drew from it a small vial containing white, glistening crystals, and hid it nervously in her bosom; then, with trembling feet, she recrossed the room, opened her door, and peered breathlessly out into the dimly lighted corridor.
No sound broke the awful stillness.
Closing the door gently after her, the great heiress tiptoed her way down the wide hall like a thief in the night, her footfalls making no sound on the velvet carpet. Jessie"s was the last door at the end of the corridor. Miss Duncan knew this well. But before she had gained it she saw Mrs. Varrick leave her room and step to Jessie"s.
She remembered Mrs. Varrick did not like the girl. A score of conjectures flashed through her mind as to the object of that surrept.i.tious visit; but she put them all from her as being highly impracticable and not to be thought of.
The morrow would tell the story. She must wait patiently until then, and find out for herself.
How thankful she was that she had not been three minutes earlier. In that case Mrs Varrick would have discovered her. And then, too, a tragedy had been averted.
She took the vial from her bosom, and with trembling hands shook its contents from the window down into the grounds below, and threw the tiny bottle out among the rose bushes, murmuring:
"If it is ever done at all, it must not be done that way."
Then she threw herself on the couch just as the day was breaking, and dropped into an uneasy sleep, from which she was startled by a terrific rap on the door.
CHAPTER XI.
GERELDA COULD HAVE SAVED HER.
Hastily opening the door, Gerelda saw one of the maids.
"My mistress wishes to see you in the morning-room," she said. "I have brought you some breakfast. You are to partake of this first; but my mistress hopes you will not be long."
Gerelda swallowed a roll and drank the tea and hastened to the morning-room. Here Gerelda found not only Mrs. Varrick, but every man and woman who lived beneath the roof of the Varrick mansion.
For a moment Gerelda hesitated.
Had some one discovered that she was in disguise, and informed Mrs.
Varrick? She trembled violently from head to foot.
Mrs. Varrick broke in upon her confused thoughts.
"Pardon my somewhat abrupt summons, Miss Duncan," she said, motioning her to a chair, "but something has occurred which renders it imperative that I should speak collectively to every member of this household.
"Most of you remember, no doubt, that I wore my diamond bracelet to the opera last night. When I returned home I unclasped it from my arm, myself, and laid it carefully away in my jewel-box. This morning it is missing. My maid and I made a careful examination of the room where I am in the habit of keeping my jewels. We found that the room had not been entered from the outside, that all the windows and doors were securely bolted on the inside. I am therefore forced to accept the theory that my room was visited by some one from the inside of the house."
"Wasn"t it amazing!" cried Jessie, turning to Miss Duncan. "A thief walking through the house in the dead of night, while we were all sleeping! I am sure I should have been frightened into hysterics had I known it."
A cold, calm look from Mrs. Varrick"s steel-gray eyes seemed to arrest the words on the girl"s lips, and that strange, uncanny gaze sent a thrill creeping down to the very depths of Jessie Bain"s soul.
All in a flash, as Miss Duncan listened, she realized what was coming.
"Let no one interrupt me unless I invite them to speak," said Mrs.
Varrick, continuing: "I will go on to say that the butler informs me that he found no door or window open in any part of the house, when he opened up the place this morning.
"Have you missed anything, Miss Duncan?"
"No," said Gerelda, quietly.
"And you, Miss Bain?"
"No. I have nothing that any thief would care to take," returned the girl; "only this gold chain and this battered old locket which contains my dead mother"s picture, and I always wear this about my neck day and night."
Mrs. Varrick asked the same question of every one present--"if they had lost anything during the night"--and each one answered in a positive negative.
"Then it seems that the thief was content with taking my diamond bracelet," she said, sharply.
Suddenly the housekeeper, who had been in Mrs. Varrick"s service since she had come there a bride, spoke out:
"I am sure n.o.body would object, ma"am, if the trunks and boxes of every one in the house were to be examined."
Mrs. Varrick turned to the housekeeper.
"I should not like to say that I suspect any one," she answered. "I have sent for one of the most experienced detectives in the city, and am expecting him to arrive at any moment. In the meantime, I desire that you will all remain in this room."
Miss Duncan had maintained throughout an att.i.tude of polite indifference. Now she realized what that visit to Jessie Bain"s room, in the dead of the night, meant.