The Golden Slipper | Page 8

"neither Caroline nor myself are worthy of Captain Holliday's love. Caroline has told you her fault, but mine is perhaps a worse one. The ring--the scarf--the diamond pins--I took them all--took them if I did not retain them. A curse has been over my life--the curse of a longing I could not combat. But love was working a change in me. Since I have known Captain Holliday--but that's all over. I was mad to think I could be happy with such memories in my life. I shall never marry now--or touch jewels again--my own or another's. Father, father, you won't go back on your girl! I couldn't see Caroline suffer for what I have done. You will pardon me and help- -help--"
Her voice choked. She flung herself into her father's arms; his head bent over hers, and for an instant not a soul in the room moved. Then Miss Hughson gave a spring and caught her by the hand. "We are inseparable," said she, and kissed the hand, murmuring, "Now is our time to show it."
Then other lips fell upon those cold and trembling fingers, which seemed to warm under these embraces. And then a tear. It came from the hard eye of Caroline, and remained a sacred secret between the two.
"You have your pendant?"
Mr. Driscoll's suffering eye shone down on Violet Strange's uplifted face as she advanced to say good-bye preparatory to departure.
"Yes," she acknowledged, "but hardly, I fear, your gratitude."
And the answer astonished her.
"I am not sure that the real Alicia will not make her father happier than the unreal one has ever done."
"And Captain Holliday?"
"He may come to feel the same."
"Then I do not quit in disgrace?"
"You depart with my thanks."
When a certain personage was told of the success of Miss Strange's latest manoeuvre, he remarked: "The little one progresses. We shall have to give her a case of prime importance next."
END OF PROBLEM I
PROBLEM II
THE SECOND BULLET
"You must see her."
"No. No."
"She's a most unhappy woman. Husband and child both taken from her in a moment; and now, all means of living as well, unless some happy thought of yours--some inspiration of your genius-- shows us a way of re-establishing her claims to the policy voided by this cry of suicide."
But the small wise head of Violet Strange continued its slow shake of decided refusal.
"I'm sorry," she protested, "but it's quite out of my province. I'm too young to meddle with so serious a matter."
"Not when you can save a bereaved woman the only possible compensation left her by untoward fate?"
"Let the police try their hand at that."
"They have had no success with the case."
"Or you?"
"Nor I either."
"And you expect--"
"Yes, Miss Strange. I expect you to find the missing bullet which will settle the fact that murder and not suicide ended George Hammond's life. If you cannot, then a long litigation awaits this poor widow, ending, as such litigation usually does, in favour of the stronger party. There's the alternative. If you once saw her-- "
"But that's what I'm not willing to do. If I once saw her I should yield to her importunities and attempt the seemingly impossible. My instincts bid me say no. Give me something easier."
"Easier things are not so remunerative. There's money in this affair, if the insurance company is forced to pay up. I can offer you--"
"What?"
There was eagerness in the tone despite her effort at nonchalance. The other smiled imperceptibly, and briefly named the sum.
It was larger than she had expected. This her visitor saw by the way her eyelids fell and the peculiar stillness which, for an instant, held her vivacity in check.
"And you think I can earn that?"
Her eyes were fixed on his in an eagerness as honest as it was unrestrained.
He could hardly conceal his amazement, her desire was so evident and the cause of it so difficult to understand. He knew she wanted money--that was her avowed reason for entering into this uncongenial work. But to want it so much! He glanced at her person; it was simply clad but very expensively--how expensively it was his business to know. Then he took in the room in which they sat. Simplicity again, but the simplicity of high art--the drawing-room of one rich enough to indulge in the final luxury of a highly cultivated taste, viz.: unostentatious elegance and the subjection of each carefully chosen ornament to the general effect.
What did this favoured child of fortune lack that she could be reached by such a plea, when her whole being revolted from the nature of the task he offered her? It was a question not new to him; but one he had never heard answered and was not likely to hear answered now. But the fact remained that the consent he had thought dependent upon sympathetic interest could be