But, as you have heard, there is something yet to relate of that hot June day, or, rather, of its evening, when poor Selina Dalrymple had applied for help, and unsuccessfully, to her sister Alice.
The great world of London was beginning to think of dinner. In a well-furnished dressing-room, the windows being open for air, and the blinds drawn down to exclude the sun, stood a tall, stately lady, whose maid was giving the last touch to her rich attire. It was Lady Sarah Hope.
"What bracelets, my lady?" asked the maid, taking a small bunch of keys from her pocket.
"Not any, now: it is so very hot. Alice," added Lady Sarah, turning to Alice, who was leaning back on a sofa, "will you put all my bracelets out for me against I come up? I will decide then."
"Iput them out, Lady Sarah?" returned Alice. "Yes, certainly."
"If you will be so kind. Hughes, give the key to Miss Seaton." For they did sometimes remember to address Alice by her adopted name.
Lady Sarah left the room, and the maid, Hughes, began taking one of the small keys off the ring. "I have leave to go out, miss," she explained, "which is the reason why my lady has asked you to see to her bracelets. My mother is not well, and wants to see me. This is the key, ma'am."
As Alice took it, Lady Sarah reappeared at the door. "Alice, you may as well bring the bracelet-box down to the back drawing-room," she said. "I shall not care to come up here after dinner: we shall be late as it is."
"What's that about the bracelet-box?" inquired a pretty-looking girl, who had come swiftly out of another apartment.
"Lady Sarah wishes me to bring her bracelets down to the drawing-room, that she may choose which to put on. It was too hot to wear them to dine in, she said."
"Are you not coming in to dinner, Alice?"
"No. I walked out, and it has tired me. I have had some tea instead.".
"I would not be you for all the world, Alice! To possess so little capability of enjoying life."
"Yet, if you were as I am, weak in health and strength, your lot would have been so soothed to you, Frances, that you would not repine at or regret it."
"You mean I should be content," laughed Frances, upon whom the defection of Mr. Gerard Hope earlier in the year did not appear to have made much impression: though perhaps she did not know its particulars. "Well, there is nothing like contentment, the sages tell us. One of my detestable schoolroom copies used to be 'Contentment is happiness.'"
"I can hear the dinner being taken in," said Alice. "You will be late in the drawing-room."
Lady Frances Chenevix turned away to fly down the stairs. Her light, rounded form, her elastic step, all telling of health and enjoyment, presented a marked contrast to that of Alice Dalrymple. Alice's face was indeed strangely beautiful, almost too refined and delicate for the wear and tear of common life, but her figure was weak and stooping, and her gait feeble.
Colonel Hope, thin and spare, with sharp brown eyes and sharp features, sat at the foot of his table. He was beginning to look so shrunk and short, that his friends jokingly told him he must have been smuggled into the army, unless he had since been growing downwards, for surely so little a commander could never expect to be obeyed. No stranger could have believed him at ease in his circumstances, any more than they would have believed him a colonel who had seen hard service in India, for his clothes were frequently threadbare. A black ribbon supplied the place of a gold chain as guard to his watch, and a blue, tin-looking thing of a galvanized ring did duty for any other ring on his finger. Yet he was rich; of fabulous riches, people said; but he was of a close disposition, especially as regarded his personal outlay. In his home and to his wife he was liberal. A good husband; and, putting his crustiness and his crotchets aside, a good man. It was the loss of his two boys that had so tried and changed him. His large property was not entailed: it had been thought his nephew, Gerard Hope, would inherit it, but Gerard had been turned from the house. Lady Sarah remarked that it was too hot to dine; but the colonel, in respect to heat, was a salamander.
Alice meanwhile lay on the sofa for half-an-hour; and then, taking the bracelet-box in her hands, descended to the drawing-rooms. It was intensely hot, she thought; a sultry, breathless heat; and she threw open the back window. Which in truth made it hotter, for the sun gleamed right athwart the leads which stretched themselves beyond the windows over the outbuildings at the back of the row of houses.
Alice sat down near this back window, and began to put out some of the bracelets on the table before it. They were rare and rich: of plain gold, of silver, of pearl, of precious stones. One of them was of gold links, studded with diamonds; it was very valuable, and had been the present of Colonel Hope to his wife on her recent birthday. Another diamond bracelet was there, but it was not so beautiful or so costly as this. When her task was done, Alice passed into the front drawing-room, and put up one of its large windows. Still there was no air in the room.
As she stood at it, a handsome young man, tall and agile, who was walking on the opposite side of the street, caught her eye. He nodded, hesitated, and then crossed the street as if to enter.
"It is Gerard!" muttered Alice, under her breath. "Can he be coming here?" She walked away from the window hastily, and sat down by the bedecked table in the other room.
"Just as I supposed!" exclaimed Gerard Hope, entering, and advancing to Alice with stealthy steps. "When I saw you at the window, the thought struck me that you were alone here, and they at dinner. Thomas happened to be airing himself at the door, so I crossed over, found I was right, and came up. How are you, Alice?"
"Have you come to dinner?" inquired Alice, speaking at random, and angry at her own agitation.
"Icome to dinner!" repeated Gerard. "Why, you know they'd as soon sit down with the renowned Mr. Ketch."
"Indeed I know nothing about it: we have been away in Gloucestershire for months, as I dare say you are aware: I was hoping that you and the colonel might have been reconciled. Why did you come in, Gerard? Thomas may tell them."
"Thomas won't. I charged him not to. The idea of your never coming up till June! Some whim of Lady Sarah's, I suppose. Two or three times a-week for the last month have I been marching past this house, wondering when it was going to show signs of life. Frances is here still?"
"Oh yes. She remains here altogether."
"To make up for—— Alice, was it not a shame to turn me out?"
"I was extremely sorry for what happened, Mr. Hope, but I knew nothing of the details. Lady Sarah said you had displeased herself and the colonel, and after that she never mentioned your name."
"What a show of smart things you have here, Alice! Are you going to set up a bazaar?"
"They are Lady Sarah's bracelets."
"So they are, I see! This is a gem," added Gerard, taking up the fine diamond bracelet already mentioned. "I don't remember this one."
"It is new. The colonel has just given it to her."
"What did it cost?"
Alice laughed. "Do you think it likely I have heard? I question if Lady Sarah has."
"It never cost a farthing less than two hundred guineas," mused Gerard, turning the bracelet in various directions, that its rich diamonds might give out their gleaming light. "I wish it was mine."
"What should you do with it?" laughed Alice.
"Spout it."
"I do not understand," returned Alice. She really did not.
"I beg your pardon, Alice. I was thinking of the colloquial lingo familiarly applied to such transactions, instead of to whom I was talking. I mean raise money upon it."
"Oh, Mr. Hope!"
"Alice, that's twice you have called me 'Mr. Hope.' I thought I had been 'Gerard' to you for many a year."
"Time changes things; and you seem more like a stranger than you used to," returned Alice, a flush rising to her sensitive face. "But you spoke of raising money: I hope you are not in temporary embarrassment."
"A jolly good thing for me if it turns out only temporary," he rejoined. "Look at my position! Debts hanging over my head—for you may be sure, Alice, all young men, with a limited allowance and large expectations, contract debts—and thrust out of my uncle's home with just the loose cash I had in my pocket, and my clothes sent packing after me."
"Has the colonel stopped your allowance?"
Gerard Hope laid down the bracelet from whence he had taken it, before he replied.
"He stopped it then; it's months ago, you know; and I have not had a shilling since, except from my own resources. I first went upon tick; then I disposed of my watch and chain and all my other little matters of value: and now I am upon tick again."
Alice did not answer. The light tone vexed her.
"Perhaps you don't understand these free terms, Alice," he said, looking fondly at her, "and I hope you may never have occasion to. Frances would: she has lived in their atmosphere."
"Yes, I know what an embarrassed man the earl often is. But I am grieved to hear about yourself. Is the colonel implacable? What was the cause of the quarrel?"
"You know I was to be his heir. Even if more children had come to him, he undertook to provide amply for me. Last autumn he suddenly sent for me to tell me it was his pleasure and Lady Sarah's that I should take up my abode with them. So I did take it up, glad to get into such good quarters; and stopped here like an innocent, unsuspicious lamb, until—when was it, Alice? March? Then the plot came out."
"The plot," exclaimed Alice.
"It was nothing less. They had fixed upon a wife for me; and I was ordered to hold myself in readiness to marry her at any given moment."
"Who was it?" inquired Alice, in a low tone, as she bent her head over the bracelets.
"Never mind," laughed the young man; "it wasn't you. I said I would not have her; and they both, he and Lady Sarah, pulled me and my want of taste to pieces, assuring me I was a monster of ingratitude. It provoked me into confessing that I liked some one else better. And then the colonel turned me out."
Alice looked her sorrow, but she did not express it.
"Of course I saw the imprudence then of having thrown up my place in the red-tape office; but it was done. And since then I have been having a fight with my creditors, putting them off with fair words and promises. But they have grown incredulous, and it has come to dodging. In favour with my uncle, and his acknowledged heir, they would have given me unlimited time and credit, but the breach between us is known, and it makes all the difference. With the value of that at my disposal"—nodding at the bracelet—"I should stop a few pressing personal trifles and go on again for a while. So you see, Alice, a diamond bracelet may be of use to a gentleman, should some genial fortune drop one into his hands."
"I sympathize with you very much," said Alice, "and I would I had it in my power to aid you."
"Thank you for your kind wishes; I know they are genuine. When my uncle sees the name of Gerard Hope figuring in the insolvent list, or amongst the outlaws, he—— Hark! Can they be coming up from dinner?"
"Scarcely yet," said Alice, starting up simultaneously with himself, and listening. "But they will not sit long today, because they are going to the opera. Gerard, they must not find you here."
"It might get you turned out as well as myself! No, not if I can help it. Alice!"—suddenly laying his hands upon her shoulders, and gazing down into her eyes—"do you know who it was I had learnt to love, instead of—of the other?"
She gasped for breath, and her colour went and came. "No—no; do not tell me, Gerard."
"Why, no, I had better not, under present circumstances. But when the good time comes—for all their high-roped indignation must and will blow over—then I will; and here's the pledge of it." He bent his head, took one long earnest kiss from her lips; and the next moment was gone.
Agitated almost to sickness, trembling and confused, Alice stole to look after him, terrified lest he might not escape unseen. She crept partly down the stairs, so as to obtain sight of the hall-door, and make sure that he got out in safety. As Gerard drew it quietly open, there stood a lady just about to knock. It was Selina, waiting to exchange a few words with Gerard. He waved his hand towards the staircase. Alice met her, and took her into the front drawing-room.
"I cannot stay to sit down, Alice: I must hasten back to dress, for I am engaged to three or four places tonight. Neither do I wish to horrify Lady Sarah with a visit at this untoward hour. I had a request to make to you, and thought to catch you in your room before you went in to dinner."
"They are alone, and are dining earlier than usual. I was too tired to appear. What can I do for you, Selina?"
Mrs. Oscar Dalrymple had come (as you have already heard) to try that one hopeless task—the borrowing money of her sister.
"I am in pressing need of it, Alice," she said. "Can you lend it me?"
"I wish I could," returned Alice; "I am so very sorry. I sent all I had to poor mamma the day before we came to town. It was only twenty-five pounds."
"Thatwould have been of no use to me: I want more. I thought if you had been misering up your salary, you might have had a hundred pounds, or so, by you."
Alice shook her head. "I should be a long while saving up a hundred pounds, even if dear mamma had no wants. But I send to her what I can spare. Is it for—dresses, and that?"
"Yes," was Selina's laconic answer.
"I wish I had it to give you! Do not be in such a hurry," continued Alice, as her sister was moving to the door. "At least wait one minute while I fetch you a letter I received from mamma this morning, in answer to mine. You will like to read it, for it is full of news of the old place. You can take it home with you, Selina."
Alice left her sister standing in the front-room, and went upstairs. But she was more than one minute away; she was three or four, for she could not at first lay her hand upon the letter. When she returned, her sister advanced to her from the back drawing-room, the folding-doors between the two rooms being, as before, wide open.
"What a fine collection of bracelets, Alice!" she exclaimed, as she took the letter. "Are they spread out for show?"
"No," laughed Alice; "Lady Sarah is going to the opera, and will have no time to spare when she comes up from dinner. She asked me to bring them all down, as she had not decided which to wear."
"I like to dress entirely before dinner on my opera nights."
"Oh, so of course does Lady Sarah," returned Alice, as her sister descended the stairs; "but she said it was too hot to dine in bracelets."
"It is fearfully hot. Good-bye, Alice. Don't ring: I will let myself out."
Alice returned to the front-room and looked from the window, wondering whether her sister had come in her carriage. No. A trifling evening breeze was rising and beginning to move the curtains about. Gentle as it was, it was grateful, and Alice sat down in it. In a very few minutes the ladies came up from dinner.
"Have you the bracelets, Alice. Oh, I see."
Lady Sarah went into the back-room as she spoke, and stood before the table, looking at the bracelets. Alice rose to follow her, when Lady Frances Chenevix caught her by the arm, and began to speak in a covert whisper.
"Who was that at the door just now? It was a visitor's knock. Do you know, Alice, every hour, since we came to town, I have fancied Gerard might be calling. In the country he could not get to us, but here—— Was it Gerard?"
"It—it was my sister," carelessly answered Alice. It was not a true answer, for her sister had not knocked, and she did not know who had. But it was the readiest that rose to her lips, and she wished to escape the questioning, for more reasons than one.
"Only your sister," replied Frances, turning to the window with a gesture of disappointment.
"Which have you put on?" inquired Alice, going towards Lady Sarah.
"Those loose, fancy things; they are the coolest. I really am so hot: the soup was that favourite soup of the colonel's, all capsicums and cayenne, and the wine was hot; there had been a mistake about the ice. Gill trusted to the new man, and he did not understand it. It was all hot together. What the house will be tonight, I dread to think of."
Lady Sarah, whilst she spoke, had been putting the bracelets into the jewel-box, with very little care.
"I had better put them straight," remarked Alice, when she reached the table.
"Do not trouble," returned Lady Sarah, shutting down the lid. "You are looking flushed and feverish, Alice; you were wrong to walk so far today. Hughes will set them to rights tomorrow morning; they will do until then. Lock them up, and take possession of the key."
Alice did as she was bid. She locked the case and put the key in her pocket. "Here is the carriage," exclaimed Lady Frances. "Are we to wait for coffee?"
"Coffee in this heat!" retorted Lady Sarah; "it would be adding fuel to fire. We will have some tea when we return. Alice, you must make tea for the colonel; he will not come out without it. He thinks this weather just what it ought to be: rather cold, if anything."
Alice had taken the bracelet-box in her hands as Lady Sarah spoke; when they had departed, she carried it upstairs to its place in Lady Sarah's bedroom. The colonel speedily rose from table, for his wife had laid her commands on him to join them early. Alice helped him to his tea, and as soon as he was gone she went upstairs to bed.
To bed, but not to sleep. Tired as she was, and exhausted in frame, sleep would not come to her. She was living over again her interview with Gerard Hope. She could not, in her conscious heart, affect to misunderstand his implied meaning—that she had been the cause of his rejecting the union proposed to him. It diffused a strange rapture within her; and, though she had not perhaps been wholly blind and unconscious during the period of Gerard's stay with them, and for some time before that, she now kept repeating the words, "Can it be that he loves me? can it be?"
It certainly was so. Love plays strange pranks. There was Gerard Hope—heir to the colonel's fabulous wealth, consciously proud of his handsome person, his height and strength—called home and planted down by the side of a pretty and noble lady on purpose that he might fall in love with her: the Lady Frances Chenevix. And yet, the well-laid project failed: failed because there happened to be another at that young lady's side: a sad, quiet, feeble-framed girl, whose very weakness may have seemed to others to place her beyond the pale of man's love. But love thrives by contrasts; and it was the feeble girl who won the love of the strong man.
Yes; the knowledge diffused a strange rapture within her, Alice Dalrymple, as she lay that night; and she may be excused if, for a brief period, she allowed range to the sweet fantasies it conjured up. For a brief period only. Too soon the depressing consciousness returned to her, that these thoughts of earthly happiness must be subdued: for she, with her confirmed ailments and conspicuous weakness, must never hope to marry, as did other women. She had long known—her mother had prepared her for it—that one so afflicted and frail as she, whose tenure of existence was likely to be short, ought not to become a wife; and it had been her earnest hope to pass through life unloving, in that one sense, and unloved. She had striven to arm herself against the danger, against being thrown into the perils of temptation. Alas! it had come insidiously upon her; all her care had been set at naught; and she knew that she loved Gerard Hope with a deep and fervent love. "It is but another cross," she sighed, "another burden to surmount and subdue, and I will set myself from this night to the task. I have been a coward, shrinking from self-examination; but now that Gerard has spoken out, I can deceive myself no longer. I wish he had spoken more freely, that I might have told him it was useless."
It was only towards morning that Alice dropped asleep: the consequence was that long after her usual hour for rising she was still sleeping. The opening of her door awoke her. It was Lady Sarah's maid who stood there.
"Why, miss; are you not up? Well, I never! I wanted the key of the small jewel-box; but I'd have waited, had I known."
"What do you say you want?" returned Alice, whose ideas were confused; as is often the case on being suddenly awakened.
"The key of the bracelet-box, if you please."
"The key?" repeated Alice. "Oh, I remember," she added, recollection returning to her. "Be at the trouble, will you, Hughes, of taking it out of my pocket: it is on that chair, under my clothes."
The servant came to the pocket, and speedily found the key. "Are you worse than usual, Miss Seaton, this morning," asked she, "or have you overslept yourself?"
"I have overslept myself. Is it late?"
"Between nine and ten. My lady is up, and at breakfast with the Colonel and Lady Frances."
Alice rose the instant the maid left the room, and made haste to dress, vexed with herself for sleeping so long. She was nearly ready when Hughes came in again.
"If ever I saw such confusion as that jewel-case was in!" cried she, in as pert and grumbling a tone as she dared to use. "The bracelets were thrown together without law or order—just as if they had been so much glass and tinsel from the Lowther Arcade."
"It was Lady Sarah," replied Alice. "I would have put them straight, but she told me to leave it for you. I thought she might prefer that you should do it."
"Of course her ladyship is aware there's nobody but myself knows their right places in it," returned Hughes, consequentially. "I could go to that or to the other jewel-box in the dark, ma'am, and take out any one thing my lady wanted, without disturbing the rest."
"I have observed that you have the gift of order," remarked Alice, with a smile. "It is very useful to those who possess it, and saves them much trouble and confusion."
"So it do, ma'am," said Hughes. "But I came to ask you for the diamond bracelet."
"The diamond bracelet!" echoed Alice. "What diamond bracelet! What do you mean, Hughes?"
"It is not in the box."
"The diamond bracelets are both in the box," rejoined Alice.
"The old one is there; not the new one. I thought you might have taken it out to show some one, or to look at yourself, ma'am, for it's just a sight for pleasant eyes."
"I can assure you it is in the case," said Alice. "All are there, except the pair Lady Sarah had on. You must have overlooked it."
"I am a great donkey if I have," grumbled the girl. "It must be at the very bottom, amongst the cotton," she soliloquized, as she returned to Lady Sarah's apartments, "and I have just got to take every individual article out, to get to it. This comes of giving up one's keys to other folks."
Alice entered the breakfast-room, begging pardon for her late appearance. It was readily accorded. Her office in the house was nearly a sinecure. When she had first entered upon it Lady Sarah was ill, and required some one to sit with and read to her: now that she was well again, Alice had little to do.
Breakfast was scarcely over when Alice was called from the room. Hughes stood outside the door.
"Miss Seaton," said she, with a long face, "the diamond bracelet is not in the box. I thought I could not be mistaken."
"But it must be in the box," said Alice.
"But it isnot," persisted Hughes, emphasizing the negative. "Can't you believe me, ma'am? I want to know where it is, that I may put it up and lock the box."
Alice Seaton looked at Hughes with a puzzled, dreamy look. She was thinking matters over. Her face soon cleared again.
"Then Lady Sarah must have kept it out when she put in the rest. It was she who returned them to the case; I did not. Perhaps she wore it last night."
"No, miss, that she didn't. She wore only those two——"
"I saw what she had on," interrupted Alice. "But she might also have put on the other, without my noticing. Or she may have kept it out for some other purpose. I will ask her. Wait here an instant, Hughes; for of course you will like to be at a certainty."
"That's cool," thought Hughes, as Alice went into the breakfast-room, and the colonel came out of it, with hisTimes. "I should have said it was somebody else would like to be at a certainty, instead of me," continued the girl, indulging in soliloquy. "Thank goodness the box wasn't in my charge last night, if anything dreadful has come to pass. My lady don't keep out her bracelets for sport. Miss Seaton has left the key about, that's what she has done, and it's hard to say who hasn't been at it: I knew the box had been ransacked over."
"Lady Sarah," said Alice, "did you wear your new diamond bracelet last night?"
"No."
"Then did you put it into the box with the others?"
"No," repeated Lady Sarah, who was languidly toying with a basket of ferns.
"After you had chosen the bracelets you wished to wear, you put the others into the box yourself," explained Alice, thinking she was not understood. "Did you put in the new one, the diamond, or keep it out?"
"The new one was not there."
Alice stood confounded. "It was lying on the table, at the back of all the rest, Lady Sarah," she presently said. "Next the window."
"I tell you, Alice, it was not there. I don't know that I should have worn it if it had been, but I certainly looked for it. Not seeing it, I supposed you had not put it out; and I did not care sufficiently to ask for it."
Alice felt in a mesh of perplexity; curious thoughts, and very unpleasing ones, were beginning to dawn upon her. "But indeed the bracelet was there when you went to the table," she urged. "I put it there."
"I can assure you that you labour under a mistake, as to its being there when I came up from dinner," answered Lady Sarah. "Why do you ask?"
"Hughes has come to say it is not in the case. She is outside, waiting."
"Outside, now? Let her come in. What's this about my bracelet, Hughes?"
"Idon't know, my lady. The bracelet is not in its place, so I asked Miss Seaton for it. She thought your ladyship might have kept it out yesterday evening."
"I neither touched it nor saw it," said Lady Sarah.
"Then we have had thieves at work," spoke Hughes, decisively; who had been making up her mind to that as a fact.
"It must be in the box, Hughes," said Alice. "I laid it out on the table in the back drawing-room; and it is impossible that thieves—as you phrase it—could have come there."
"Oh yes, it is in the box, no doubt," said Lady Sarah, somewhat crossly, for she disliked to be troubled, especially in hot weather. "You have not searched properly, Hughes."
"My lady," answered Hughes, "I can trust my hands and I can trust my eyes, and they have all four been into every hole and crevice of the box."
Lady Frances Chenevix laid down theMorning Post, and advanced. "Is the bracelet really lost?"
"It cannot be lost," returned Lady Sarah. "You are sure you put it out, Alice?"
"I am quite sure of that. It was lying first in the case, and——"
"Yes, it was," interrupted Hughes. "That is its place."
"And was consequently the first that I took out," continued Alice. "I put it on the table; and the others in a semicircle, nearer to me. Why, as a proof that it lay there——"
What was Alice going to add? Was she going to adduce as a proof that Gerard Hope had taken it up and made it a subject of conversation? Recollection came to her in time; she faltered and abruptly broke off. But a faint, horrible dread, to which she would not give a shape, came stealing over her; her face turned white, and she sank on a chair, trembling visibly.
"Now look at Alice!" uttered Frances Chenevix. "She is going into one of her agitation fits."
"Do not agitate yourself, Alice," cried Lady Sarah; "that will do no good. Besides, I feel sure the bracelet is all safe in the case: where else can it be? Fetch the case, Hughes, and I will look for it myself."
Hughes whirled out of the room, inwardly resenting the doubt cast on her eyesight.
"It is so strange," mused Alice, "that you did not see the bracelet when you came up from dinner."
"It was certainly not there to see," returned Lady Sarah. "Perhaps you'll now look for yourself, my lady," cried Hughes, returning with the jewel-box in her hands.
The box was well searched. The bracelet was not there.
"This is very strange, Hughes," exclaimed Lady Sarah.
"It's very ugly also, my lady," answered Hughes, in a lofty tone, "and I'm thankful to the presiding genuses which rules such things, that I was not in charge when it happened. Though maybe, if I had been, it never would have took place, for I can give a guess how it was."
"Then you had better give it," said her mistress, curtly.
"If I do," returned Hughes, "I may offend Miss Seaton."
"No, you will not, Hughes," said Alice. "Say what you please: I have need to wish this cleared up."
"Well, ma'am, if I may speak my thoughts, I think you must have left the key about. And we have strange servants in the house, as my lady knows. There's a kitchen-maid that only entered it when we came up; and there's the new under-butler."
"Hughes, you are wrong," interrupted Alice. "The servants could not have touched the box, for the key was never out of my possession, and you know the lock is a Bramah. I locked the box last night in her ladyship's presence, and the key was not out of my pocket afterwards, until you took it from there this morning."
"The key seems to have had nothing to do with it," interposed Frances. "Alice says she put the diamond bracelet on the table with the rest; Lady Sarah says when she went to the table after dinner the bracelet was not there. Were you in the room all the while, Alice?"
"Not quite. Very nearly. But no one could possibly have gone in without my seeing them. The folding-doors were open."
"It is quite a mystery," cried Lady Sarah.
"It beats conjuring, my lady," said Hughes. "Did any visitor come upstairs, I wonder?"
"I did hear a visitor's knock while we were at dinner," said Lady Sarah. "Don't you remember, Fanny You looked up as if you noticed it."
"Did I?" answered Lady Frances, in a careless tone.
At that moment Thomas happened to enter with a letter; and his mistress put the question to him: Who had knocked?
"Sir George Danvers, my lady," was the ready answer. "When I said the colonel was at dinner, Sir George began to apologize for calling; but I explained that you were dining earlier than usual, because of the opera."
"No one else called?"
"Nobody knocked but Sir George, my lady."
"A covert answer," thought Alice. "But I am glad he is true to Gerard."
"What an untruth!" thought Lady Frances, as she remembered hearing of the visit of Alice's sister: "Thomas's memory must be short." In point of fact, Thomas knew nothing of it.
All the talk—and it was much prolonged—did not tend to throw any light upon the matter; and Alice, unhappy and ill, retired to her own room. The agitation had brought on a nervous and violent headache; she sat down in a low chair, and bent her forehead on her hands. One belief alone possessed her: that the unfortunate Gerard Hope had stolen the bracelet. Do as she would, she could not put it out of her mind: she kept repeating that he was a gentleman, that he was honourable, that he would never place her in so painful a position. Common sense replied that the temptation was suddenly laid before him, and he had confessed his pecuniary difficulties to be great; nay, had he not wished for this very bracelet, that he might make money——
A knock at the chamber-door. Alice lifted her sickly countenance, and bade the intruder enter. It was Lady Frances Chenevix.
"I came to—— Alice, how wretched you look! You will torment yourself into a fever."
"Can you wonder at my looking wretched?" returned Alice. "Place yourself in my position, Frances: it must appear to Lady Sarah as if I—I—had made away with the bracelet. I am sure Hughes thinks so."
"Don't you say unorthodox things, Alice. They would rather think that I had done it, of the two, for I have more use for diamond bracelets than you."
"It is kind of you to try to cheer me," sighed Alice.
"Just the thing I came to do. And to have a bit of chat with you as well. If you will let me."
"Of course I will let you."
"I wish to tell you I will not mention that your sister was here last evening. I promise you I will not."
Alice did not immediately reply. The words and their hushed tone caused a new trouble, a fresh thought, to arise within her, one which she had not glanced at. Was it possible that Frances could imagine her sister to be the——
"Lady Frances Chenevix!" burst forth Alice. "You cannot think it! She! my sister!—guilty of a despicable theft! Have you forgotten that she moves in your own position in the world? that our family is scarcely inferior to yours?"
"Alice, I forgive you for so misjudging me, because you are not yourself just now. Of course, your sister cannot be suspected; I know that. But as you did not mention her when they were questioning Thomas, nor did he, I supposed you had some reason for not wishing her visit spoken of."
"Believe me, Selina is not the guilty person," returned Alice. "I have more cause to say so than you think for."
"What do you mean by that?" briskly cried Lady Frances. "You surely have no clue?"
Alice shook her head, and her companion's eagerness was lulled again. "It is well that Thomas was forgetful," remarked Frances. "Was it forgetfulness, Alice; or did you contrive to telegraph to him to be silent?"
"Thomas only spoke truth, as regards Selina: he did not let her in. She came but for a minute, to ask me about a private matter, and said there was no need to tell Lady Sarah she had been."
"Then it is all quite easy; and you and I can keep our own counsel."
Quite easy, possibly, to the mind of Frances Chenevix. But anything but easy to Alice Dalrymple: for the words of Lady Frances had introduced an idea more repulsive, more terrifying even, than that of suspecting Gerard Hope. Her sister acknowledged that she was in need of money, "a hundred pounds, or so;" nay, Alice had only too good cause to know that previously; and she had seen her come from the back room where the jewels lay. Still—shetake a bracelet! Selina! It was preposterous.
Preposterous or not, Alice's torment was doubled. Which of the two had been the black sheep? One of them it must have been. Instinct, sisterly relationship, reason, and common sense, all combined to turn the scale against Gerard. But that there should be a doubt at all was not pleasant, and Alice started up impulsively and put her bonnet on.
"Where now!" cried Lady Frances.
"I will go to Selina's and ask her—and ask her—if—she saw any stranger here—any suspicious person in the hall or on the stairs," stammered Alice, making the best excuse she could make.
"But you know you were in or about the drawing-rooms all the time, and no one came into them, suspicious or unsuspicious; so, how will that aid you?"
"True," murmured Alice. "But it will be a relief to go somewhere or do something."
Alice found her sister at home; had disturbed her, in fact, at a very interesting employment, as the reader may remember. In spite of her own emotional preoccupation, Selina instantly detected that something was wrong; for the suspense, illness, and agitation had taken every vestige of colour from Alice's cheeks and lips.
"What can be the matter, Alice?" was her greeting. "You look just like a walking ghost."
"I feel that I do," breathed poor Alice, "and I kept my veil down in the street, lest I might be taken for one and scare the people. A great misfortune has fallen upon me, Selina. You saw those bracelets last night, spread out on the table?"
"Yes."
"They were in my charge, and one of them has been abstracted. It was of great value; gold links, holding diamonds."
"Abstracted!" repeated the elder sister, in both concern and surprise, but certainly without the smallest indications of a guilty knowledge. "How? In what manner?"
"It is a mystery. I only left the room when I met you on the staircase, and when I went upstairs to fetch the letter for you. Directly after you left, Lady Sarah came up from dinner, and the bracelet was not there."
"It is incredible, Alice. And no one else entered the room at all, you say? No servant? no——"
"Not any one," interrupted Alice, determined not to speak of Gerard Hope.
"Then, child, it is simply impossible," was the calm rejoinder. "It must have fallen on the ground; or been mislaid in some way."
"It is hopelessly gone. Do you remember seeing it?"
"I do remember seeing amidst the rest a bracelet set with diamonds; but only on the clasp, I think. It——"
"That was another; that one is safe," interrupted Alice. "The one missing is of fine gold links studded with brilliants. Did you see it?"
"Not that I remember. I was there scarcely a minute, for I had only strolled into the back-room just before you came down. To tell you the truth, Alice, my mind was too fully occupied with other things, to take much notice even of jewels. Do not look so perplexed: it will be all right. Only you and I were in the room, you say; and we could not take it."
"Oh!" exclaimed Alice, clasping her hands, and lifting her white, beseeching face to her sister's, "did you take it? In—in sport; or in—— Oh, surely you were not tempted to take it for anything else? Forgive me, Selina! you said you had need of money."
"Alice, are we going to have one of your old scenes of excitement? Strive for calmness. I am sure you do not know what you are implying. My poor child, I would rather help you to jewels than take them from you."
"But look at the mystery."
"It does appear to be a mystery, but it will no doubt be cleared up," was the reply, calm and equable. "Alice, what could you have been dreaming of, to suspect me? Have we not grown up together in our honourable home? You ought to know me, if any one does."
"And you really saw nothing of it!" moaned Alice, with a sobbing of the breath.
"Indeed I did not. In truth, I did not. If I could help you out of your perplexity I would thankfully do it. Shall I return with you and assist you to search for the bracelet?"
"No, thank you. Every search has been made."
"You have not told me what could induce you to suspect me?"
"I think—it was the impossibility of suspecting any one else," breathed poor Alice, with hesitation. "And you told me, you know, Selina, how very badly you wanted money."
"So I do; far more badly than you have any idea of, child. So badly that the thought crossed me for a moment of applying to that dreadfully rich fifteenth cousin of papa's in Liverpool, Benjamin Dalrymple, who estranged himself from us years ago; but I knew he would only growl out a 'No' if I did apply. But not badly enough, Alice, to bring me to stealing a diamond bracelet," emphatically concluded Selina.
Not only was the denial fervent and calm, but Selina's manner and countenance conveyed the impression of truth. Alice left her, inexpressibly relieved; though the conviction, that it must have been Gerard, returned to her in full force. "I wish I could see him!" was her mental exclamation.
And, for once, fortune favoured her wish. As she was dragging her weary limbs along, he came right upon her at the corner of a street.
"I am so thankful!" she exclaimed. "I wanted to see you."
"I think you most want to see a doctor, Alice. How ill you look!"
"I have cause," she returned. "That bracelet has been stolen."
"Which bracelet?" asked Gerard.
"That valuable one. The diamond. It was taken from the room."
"Taken when?" he rejoined, looking her full in the face—as a guilty man would scarcely dare to look.
"Then; or within a few minutes of that time. When Lady Sarah came up from dinner it was not there. She came up almost immediately."
"Who took it?" he repeated, not yet recovering his surprise.
"I don't know," she faintly said. "It was under my charge. No one else was there."
"You do not wish me to understand thatyouare suspected?" he burst forth with genuine feeling. "Their unjust meanness cannot have gone that length!"
"I trust not, but I am very unhappy. It is true I left the room when you did, but I only lingered outside on the stairs, watching—if I may tell the truth—whether you got out safely, and then I returned to it. Yet when Lady Sarah came up from dinner it was gone."
"And did no one else go into the room?" he repeated. "Did Selina? I met her at the door, and sent her upstairs."
"She went in for a minute. But she would not touch the jewels, Gerard."
"Of course not. She counts as ourselves in this. The bracelet was in the room when I left it——"
"You are sure of that?" interrupted Alice.
"I am. When I reached the door, I turned round to take a last look at you, and the diamonds of that particular bracelet gleamed at me from its place on the table."
"Oh, Gerard! Is this the truth?"
"It is the truth, on my sacred word of honour," he replied, looking at her agitated face and wondering at her words. "Why else should I say it? Good-bye, Alice; I cannot stay another moment, for there's somebody yonder I don't want to meet."
He was off like a shot. But his words and manner had conveyed a conviction of innocence to the mind of Alice, just as those of her sister had done. She stood still, looking after him in her dreamy wonder, and was jostled by the passers-by, mentally asking herselfwhichof the two was the real delinquent? One of them it must have been.