The Coast of Chance Part 30

All night she sat awake huddled under her greatcoat in the chilly darkness. She could not lie down, she could not close her eyes. At long intervals she heard the tread of unshod feet along the hall, and then she held her breath lest at her slightest stir they approach her door.

Why, since he wanted the sapphire, hadn't he tried to get it from her when he had had her unawares, upon her threshold with the house asleep?

It began to seem to her as if he were waiting, as if he were forced to wait, for some appointed moment. She knew if it were his moment it would be hers, too, as long as she had the sapphire upon her. She recalled fearfully the moment when she had crouched against the window with her hand protecting the jewel, and Harry's hand grasping her wrist. He would know well enough where to find it now. Oh, the restless unconcealable thing! Where could she hide it?

She took the pear-shaped pouch that swung always before her on her long gold chain. She had repudiated that hiding-place before, but now the more obvious the better--now that both men supposed she carried the jewel far hidden out of sight. Without moving from the bed where she was crouched, cramped and cold, she made the exchange, leaving the chain still around her neck, dropping the jewel into the pouch, where it would swing free, so carelessly dangling as to be beyond suspicion, but never beyond the reach of her hand.

It was a pale, splendid dawning full of clouds when she feel asleep.

Broad sunlight filled her room when she was awakened by a knocking at her door. She sprang from the bed and went to it. She was not to be come in upon by any unwelcome visitor. But it was Mrs. Herrick; and Flora, with a murmur of relief, since this was the one person she did want to see, drew her inside.

"Why, my child, you haven't slept, at least not properly." Mrs. Herrick herself looked anxious and weary. "I've come to tell you that Mrs.

Britton is here. She came an hour ago."

"Where is she?"

"In the breakfast-room with Mr. Cressy."

"Oh," Flora cried, "you know I didn't expect them. I didn't want them.

It wasn't for them I asked you to come."

"But can't you tell me what it is you're afraid of?" the other urged.

"Between us can't we prevent it? Is there nothing I can do to help you?"

"Ah, if you knew how much you have already helped me by just being here."

Her companion laughed a little. "Can't I do something more active than that?"

Flora pondered. "Where is Mr. Kerr?"

"In the garden, in the willow walk."

"Do you think you can manage that the others don't get at him?"

"I can; if he doesn't want to get at them," Mrs. Herrick replied.

"Against a man like that, my dear," she aimed it gravely at Flora, "one can do nothing."

But Flora had no answer for the warning. "I must see Clara immediately,"

she said.

"But not without breakfast," Mrs. Herrick protested. "I will send you up something. Remember that _she_ never abuses herself, so she's always fresh--and so she's always equal to the occasion."

Mrs. Herrick went. Flora looked into the mirror. Almost for the first time in ten days she thought of her appearance. If it was, as Mrs.

Herrick said, a factor of success, something must be done for it, for it was dreadful. The best she could do revived a pale replica of the vivid creature who had been wont to regard her from her gla.s.s. Yet her black gown, thin and trailing far behind her, and her hair wound high, by very force of their contrasted color gave her a real brilliance as they gave her a seeming height. But she descended to the breakfast-room with trepidation, and stood a full minute before the door gathering courage to go in.

When she did open it, it was so suddenly that both occupants faced her with a start. They were standing close together, and between them, on the glare of the white table-cloth, lay a little heap of gold. As they peered at her she saw that both were highly excited, but in Clara it showed like a cold sparkle; in Harry it gloomed like a menace. His hand hovered, clenched, above the money in a panic of irresolution; then, as if with an involuntary relax of nerves, opened and let fall one last piece of gold. Like a flash the whole disappeared in a sweep of Clara's hand. It pa.s.sed before Flora's eyes like a prestidigitator's trick, so rapid as to seem unreal, and left her staring. Harry gave Clara a look, half suspicious, half entreating; and then, to Flora's astonishment, turned away without a word to either of them.

Clara stood still, even after the door had closed upon Harry, and oddly, and rather horridly, she wore the same aspect she had worn the day when she had looked intently and absorbedly upon the rifled contents of Flora's room.

"Good morning," she said, and, pushing up her little misty veil, sat down with her back to the deserted breakfast table, and waited meekly, like one who has been summoned.

"I am very glad you've come," Flora said. Her wits were still all a-flutter from the appearance of that little heap of gold. She came forward and stood in Harry's place. She was face to face with the person and the question, but before the great import of it, and before the marble front of Clara's patience, she felt helpless. There was silence in the room, perfect silence in the garden; but moving along the hedged walk all at once she saw the flutter of Mrs. Herrick's gown, and then in profile Kerr beside her. The sight of him gave her her proper inspiration. She turned upon Clara.

"What are you going to do with the picture of Farrell Wand?"

For the first time she saw Clara startled. Her lips parted, and the breath that came and went between them was audible. But she was herself again before she spoke. "Do with it? Why I don't know." Her fingers drummed the table.

"Whatever you do," Flora began, "please, oh, please don't do anything immediately."

Clara's eyebrows rose like graceful swallows. "You seem to antic.i.p.ate pretty clearly what I _am_ going to do."

"I suppose you're going to do what any one would who had a clue, and could bring a person to justice," Flora candidly responded. "But if ever I have made anything easy for you, Clara, won't you this time make it easy for me? I'm not asking you to give up the picture, I'm only asking you to wait."

Clara nodded toward the window, through which Kerr could still be seen with Mrs. Herrick. "On account of him?"

"On account of him."

For the first time Clara smiled. It crept out upon her face, as it were involuntarily, but she sat there smiling in contemplation for quite ten seconds. At last, "You want me to suppress my information? My dear Flora, don't you think you want me to do more than is honest?"

"Honest!" Flora cried. The words sounded hideous to her on Clara's tongue; and yet what right had she, she thought with shame, to judge of Clara's honesty when she herself was leagued with a thief? "Clara," she said humbly, before this upholder of the right, "I can't pretend I'm not suppressing things. I've only asked you to see me before you do anything more. Now, you've come. Will you tell me one thing--did you bring the picture with you?"

Clara weighed it. "Well, if I did--"

This was the considering Clara, and Flora realized whatever she could expect from her she couldn't expect mercy. It was another thing she must appeal to.

"Clara," she urged, "wait three days, and you shall have the whole of it. You have only the picture now. You shall have the jewel, too. Then you can get the reward and still be--honest."

She let the word fall into the silence fearfully, as if she were afraid Clara might detect its sneer. But this time Clara neither smiled nor frowned.

"It isn't the reward I'm thinking about. That's really very little, considering."

"Twenty thousand dollars!"

"Would that be much to you?"

"No," Flora admitted; "at least I mean I could pay it."

"Well, then," Clara triumphed, "why, the picture alone, if it's worth anything, is worth more than that." With a bird-like lifting of the head she gave a sidelong interrogative glance.

Flora, for a moment, steadily returned the look. It was coming over her what Clara meant; a meaning so simple it was absurd she had not thought of it before--so hateful that it was all she could do to face it. She felt a tightness in her throat that was not tears. Shame and anger contended in her. Oh, for the power to have refused that shameful bargain--to have scorned it! She turned away. She closed her eyes. In her mind she saw the figure of Kerr moving quietly about the winding walks with Mrs. Herrick. She faced sharply about. "What is it worth to you?"

Clara put her off with the last sweet meekness of her cleverness.

"Whatever it's worth to you--and him."

Flora was in command of herself now. "There are some things I can not set a price on. If this is what you have come down for, we are simply waiting for you to name it." She looked over Clara's head. She had stood abashed when Clara had put on the majesty of right, but now it was Clara herself who was abashed, not at the thing itself, but at the fact of having to utter it. She sat grasping one of her gloves in her doubled fist; and, leaning forward, with her eyes like jewels in her little pale face and the white aura of her veil, waited as if she thought that by some silent agency of understanding Flora would presently take up a pen and write the desired figure in her check-book.

But Flora stood inexorable, straight and black, crowned with her helmet of gleaming hair; and, with her hands behind her, looked over Clara's head through the window into the garden. She would not help Clara gloss over this ugly fact.

A curious grimace distorted Clara's features, as if with an effort she gulped something bitter, and then into the silence her voice fell--a gasp, a breath--"Fifty thousand."