The Avalanche: A Mystery Story Part 18

She went on in her monotonous voice. "I felt reckless after that and I really was gay and almost happy at dinner last night. The die was cast. I didn't much care for anything. I thought perhaps it was my last night with you--that when I told you I had lost the ruby you would suspect and turn me out of your house, tell maman to take me back to Rouen.

"Then came that awful moment when you said you had to go away and I could not wear it. For a few moments I thought I should scream and tell you everything. But I was both too proud and too much of a coward. Then I knew I should have to rob the safe, and somehow I hated that part more than anything else. I did it just ten minutes before Rex and Polly called for me to motor down here. It had seemed the most horrible thing in the world to be a gambler, but it was worse to be a thief.

"I remembered the combination perfectly. I have that sort of memory: it registers photographically. I had seen you move the combination several times. Perhaps I deliberately registered it. I can't say. I have lived in such a maze of intrigue lately. I can't say. That is all--except that I didn't get the letters and the other things."

"He had an envelope in one hand. Spaulding has it beyond a doubt."

CHAPTER XIV

There was silence for a moment and then Price said awkwardly: "It is a pity you haven't the chain or you could wear the ruby for the rest of the evening."

She turned her eyes from the window and stared at him. "I have the chain--" She raised her hand to the tip of her bodice--"but--but--you can't mean--it isn't possible that you can forgive me."

"I think I have taken very bad care of you. What are you, after all, but a brilliant child? I am thirty-three--"

He suddenly tore off his domino with, a feeling of rage, and thrust his hands into his friendly pockets. He had never made many verbal protestations to her, although the most exacting wife could have found no fault with his love-making. But to-night he felt dumb; he was mortally afraid of appearing high and n.o.ble and magnanimous.

"You see, things always happen during the first years of married life.

Perhaps more happens--I mean in a pettier way--when the man has leisure and can see too much of his wife. In my case--our case--it was the other way--and something almost tragic happened. So I vote we treat it casually, as something that must have been expected sooner or later to disturb our--our--even tenor--and forget it."

"Forget it?"

"Well, yes. I can if you can."

"And can you forget who I am?"

"You are exactly what you were before those scoundrels recognized your mother, and--and--set me going. Of course I had to find out the truth. I thought you knew and tried to make you tell me. But you wouldn't--couldn't--and I had to employ Spaulding."

"Do you mean you would have married me if you had known the truth at the time?"

"Rather."

"And--but--I told you--I became a regular gambler."

He could not help smiling. "I have no fear of your gambling again. And I don't fancy you were a bit worse than the others who had no gambling blood in them--all the world has that. Gambling is about the earliest of the vices. I--if--you wouldn't mind promising--I know you will keep it."

"Nothing under heaven would induce me to play again. But--but--I opened your safe like a thief and stole--"

"Oh, not quite. After all it was yours as much as mine. If I had died without a will you would have got it.

"Of course--I know what you mean--but men have always driven women into a corner, and they have had to get out by methods of their own. I wish now I had given you the twenty thousand. I prefer you should accept my decision that it was all my fault. Give me the chain."

She drew it from her bosom and handed it to him. He fastened the ruby in its place and threw the chain over her neck. The great jewel lit up the front of her somber gown like a sudden torch in a cavern.

The stern despair of Helene's tragic mask relaxed. She dropped her face into her hands and began to sob. Then Ruyler was himself again. He picked her up in his arms and settled comfortably into the deepest of the chairs.

THE END