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THE AMETHYST BOX
_By_ ANNA KATHARINE GREEN
Author of The Millionaire Baby, The House in the Mist, The Filigree Ball, etc., etc.
INDIANAPOLIS THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS
COPYRIGHT 1905 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY
APRIL
THE AMETHYST BOX
I
THE FLASK WHICH HELD BUT A DROP
It was the night before the wedding. Though Sinclair, and not myself,was the happy man, I had my own causes for excitement, and, finding theheat of the billiard-room insupportable, I sought the veranda for asolitary smoke in sight of the ocean and a full moon.
I was in a condition of rapturous, if unreasoning, delight. Thatafternoon a little hand had lingered in mine for just an instant longerthan the circumstances of the moment strictly required, and small as thefavor may seem to those who do not know Dorothy Camerden, to me, whorealized fully both her delicacy and pride, it was a sign that my long,if secret, devotion was about to be rewarded and that at last I was freeto cherish hopes whose alternative had once bid fair to wreck thehappiness of my life.
I was reveling in the felicity of these anticipations and contrastingthis hour of ardent hope with others of whose dissatisfaction and gloomI was yet mindful, when a sudden shadow fell across the broad band oflight issuing from the library window, and Sinclair stepped out.
He had the appearance of being disturbed; very much disturbed, Ithought, for a man on the point of marrying the woman for whom heprofessed to entertain the one profound passion of his life; butremembering his frequent causes of annoyance--causes quite apart fromhis bride and her personal attributes--I kept on placidly smoking till Ifelt his hand on my shoulder and turned to see that the moment was aserious one.
"I have something to say to you," he whispered. "Come where we shall runless risk of being disturbed."
"What's wrong?" I asked, facing him with curiosity, if not with alarm."I never saw you look like this before. Has the old lady taken this lastminute to--"
"Hush!" he prayed, emphasizing the word with a curt gesture not to bemistaken. "The little room over the west porch is empty just now. Followme there."
With a sigh for the cigar I had so lately lighted I tossed it into thebushes and sauntered in after him. I thought I understood his trouble.The prospective bride was young--a mere slip of a girl, indeed--bright,beautiful and proud, yet with odd little restraints in her manner andlanguage, due probably to her peculiar bringing up and the surprise, notyet overcome, of finding herself, after an isolated, if not despised,childhood, the idol of society and the recipient of general homage. Thefault was not with her. But she had for guardian (alas! my dear girl hadthe same) an aunt who was a gorgon. This aunt must have been makingherself disagreeable to the prospective bridegroom, and he, being quickto take offense, quicker than myself, it was said, had probably retortedin a way to make things unpleasant. As he was a guest in the house, heand all the other members of the bridal party--(Mrs. Armstrong havinginsisted upon opening her magnificent Newport villa for this wedding andits attendant festivities), the matter might well look black to him. YetI did not feel disposed to take much interest in it, even though hiscase might be mine some day, with all its accompanying drawbacks.
But, once confronted with Sinclair in the well-lighted room above, Iperceived that I had better drop all selfish regrets and give my fullattention to what he had to say. For his eye, which had flashed with anunusual light at dinner, was clouded now, and his manner, when he stroveto speak, betrayed a nervousness I had considered foreign to his natureever since the day I had seen him rein in his horse so calmly on theextreme edge of a precipice where a fall would have meant certain deathnot only to himself, but also to the two riders who unwittingly werepressing closely behind him.
"Walter," he faltered, "something has happened, something dreadful,something unprecedented! You may think me a fool--God knows I would beglad to be proved so, but this thing has frightened me. I--" He pausedand pulled himself together. "I will tell you about it, then you canjudge for yourself. I am in no condition to do so. I wonder if you willbe when you hear--"
"Don't beat about the bush. Speak up! What's the matter?"
He gave me an odd look full of gloom, a look I felt the force of, thoughI could not interpret it; then coming closer, though there was no onewithin hearing, possibly no one any nearer than the drawing-room below,he whispered in my ear:
"I have lost a little vial of the deadliest drug ever compounded; aVenetian curiosity which I was foolish enough to take out and show theladies, because the little box which holds it is such an exquisiteexample of jewelers' work. There's death in its taste, almost in itssmell; and it's out of my hands and--"
"Well, I'll tell you how to fix that up," I put in, with my usual frankdecision. "Order the music stopped; call everybody into the drawing-roomand explain the dangerous nature of this toy. After which, if anythinghappens, it will not be your fault, but that of the person who has sothoughtlessly appropriated it."
His eyes, which had been resting eagerly on mine, shifted aside invisible embarrassment.
"Impossible! It would only aggravate matters, or rather, would notrelieve my fears at all. The person who took it knew its nature verywell, and that person--"
"Oh, then you know who took it!" I broke in, in increasing astonishment."I thought from your manner that--"
"No," he moodily corrected, "I do not know who took it. If I did, Ishould not be here. That is, I do not know the exact person. Only--"Here he again eyed me with his former singular intentness, andobserving that I was nettled, made a fresh beginning. "When I camehere, I brought with me a case of rarities chosen from my variouscollections. In looking over them preparatory to making a present toGilbertine, I came across the little box I have just mentioned. It ismade of a single amethyst and contains--or so I was assured when Ibought it--a tiny flask of old but very deadly poison. How it came to beincluded with the other precious and beautiful articles I had picked outfor her _cadeau_, I can not say; but there it was; and conceiving thatthe sight of it would please the ladies, I carried it down into thelibrary and, in an evil hour, called three or four of those about me toinspect it. This was while you boys were in the billiard-room, so theladies could give their entire attention to the little box which iscertainly worth the most careful scrutiny.
"I was holding it out on the palm of my hand, where it burned with apurple light which made more than one feminine eye glitter, whensomebody inquired to what use so small and yet so rich a receptaclecould be put. The question was such a natural one I never thought ofevading it, besides, I enjoy the fearsome delight which women take inthe marvelous. Expecting no greater result than lifted eyebrows orflushed cheeks, I answered by pressing a little spring in thefiligree-work surrounding the gem. Instantly, the tiniest of lids flewback, revealing a crystal flask of such minute proportions that theusual astonishment followed its disclosure.
"'You see!' I cried, 'it was made to hold _that_!' And moving my hand toand fro under the gas-jet, I caused to shine in their eyes the singledrop of yellow liquid it still held. 'Poison!' I impressively announced.'This trinket may have adorned the bosom of a Borgia or flashed from thearm of some great Venetian lady as she flourished her fan between herembittered heart and the object of her wrath or jealousy.'
"The first sentence had come naturally, but the last was spoken atrandom and almost unconsciously. For at the utterance of the word'poison,' a quickly suppressed cry had escaped the lips of some onebehind me, which, while faint enough to elude the attenti
on of any earless sensitive than my own, contained such an astonishing, ifinvoluntary, note of self-betrayal that my mind grew numb with horror,and I stood staring at the fearful toy which had called up such arevelation of--what? That is what I am here to ask, first of myself,then of you. For the two women pressing behind me were--"
"Who?" I sharply demanded, partaking in some indefinable way of hisexcitement and alarm.
"Gilbertine Murray and Dorothy Camerden:"--his prospective bride and thewoman I loved and whom he knew I loved, though I had kept my secretquite successfully from every one else!
The look we exchanged neither of us will ever forget.
"Describe the sound!" I presently said.
"I can not," he replied. "I can only give you my impression of it. You,like myself, fought in more than one skirmish in the Cuban War. Did youever hear the cry made by a wounded man when the cup of cool water forwhich he has long agonized is brought suddenly before his eyes? Such asound, with all that goes to make it eloquent, did I hear from one ofthe two girls who leaned over my shoulder. Can you understand thisamazing, this unheard-of circumstance? Can you name the woman, can youname the grief capable of making either of these seemingly happy andinnocent girls hail the sight of such a doubtful panacea with anunconscious ebullition of joy? You would clear my wedding-eve of a greatdread if you could, for if this expression of concealed misery came fromGilbertine--"
"Do you mean," I cried in vehement protest, "that you really are indoubt as to which of these two women uttered the cry which so startledyou? That you positively can not tell whether it was Gilbertineor--or--"
"I can not; as God lives, I can not. I was too dazed, too confounded bythe unexpected circumstance, to turn at once, and when I did, it was tosee both pairs of eyes shining, and both faces dimpling with real oraffected gaiety. Indeed, if the matter had stopped there, I should havethought myself the victim of some monstrous delusion; but when ahalf-hour later I found this box missing from the cabinet where I hadhastily thrust it at the peremptory summons of our hostess, I knew thatI had not misunderstood the nature of the cry I had heard; that it wasindeed one of secret longing, and that the hand had simply taken whatthe heart desired. If a death occurs in this house to-night--"
"Sinclair, you are mad!" I exclaimed with great violence. No lesser wordwould fit either the intensity of my feeling or the confused state of mymind. "Death _here_! where all are so happy! Remember your bride'singenuous face! Remember the candid expression of Dorothy's eye--hersmile--her noble ways! You exaggerate the situation. You neitherunderstand aright the simple expression of surprise you heard, nor thefeminine frolic which led these girls to carry off this romanticspecimen of Italian deviltry."
"You are losing time," was his simple comment. "Every minute we allow topass in inaction only brings the danger nearer."
"What! You imagine--"
"I imagine nothing. I simply know that one of these girls has in herpossession the means of terminating life in an instant; that the girl sohaving it is not happy, and that if anything happens to-night it will bebecause we rested supine in the face of a very real and possible danger.Now, as Gilbertine has never given me reason to doubt either heraffection for myself or her satisfaction in our approaching union, Ihave allowed myself--"
"To think that the object of your fears is Dorothy," I finished with alaugh I vainly strove to make sarcastic.
He did not answer, and I stood battling with a dread I could neitherconceal nor avow. For preposterous as his idea was, reason told me thathe had some grounds for his doubt.
Dorothy, unlike Gilbertine Murray, was not to be read at a glance, andher trouble--for she certainly had a trouble--was not one she chose toshare with any one, even with me. I had flattered myself in days gone bythat I understood it well enough, and that any lack of sincerity I mightobserve in her could be easily explained by the position of dependenceshe held toward an irascible aunt. But now that I forced myself toconsider the matter carefully I could not but ask if the varying moodsby which I had found myself secretly harrowed had not sprung from a verydifferent cause--a cause for which my persistent love was more to blamethan the temper of her relative. The aversion she had once shown to myattentions had yielded long ago to a shy, but seemingly sincereappreciation of them, and gleams of what I was fain to call real feelinghad shown themselves now and then in her softened manner, culminatingto-day in that soft pressure of my hand which had awakened my hopes andmade me forget all the doubts and caprices of a disturbing courtship.
But, had I interpreted that strong, nervous pressure aright? Had itnecessarily meant love? Might it not have sprung from a sudden desperateresolution to accept a devotion which offered her a way out ofdifficulties especially galling to one of her gentle but lofty spirit?Her expression when she caught my look of joy had little of the demuretenderness of a maiden blushing at her first involuntary avowal. Therewas shrinking in it, but it was the shrinking of a frightened woman, notof an abashed girl; and when I strove to follow her, the gesture withwhich she waved me back had that in it which would have alarmed a moreexacting lover. Had I mistaken my darling's feelings? Was her heartstill cold, her affection unwon? Or--thought insupportable!--had shesecretly yielded to another what she had so long denied me and--
"Ah!" quoth Sinclair at this juncture, "I see that I have roused you atlast." And unconsciously his tone grew lighter and his eye lost thestrained look which had made it the eye of a stranger. "You begin to seethat a question of the most serious import is before us, and that thisquestion must be answered before we separate for the night."
"I do," said I.
His relief was evident.
"Then so much is gained. The next point is, how are we to settle ourdoubts? We can not approach either of these ladies with questions. Agirl wretched enough to contemplate suicide would be especially carefulto conceal both her misery and its cause. Neither can we order a searchmade for an object so small that it can be concealed about the person."
"Yet this jewel must be recovered. Listen, Sinclair. I will have a talkwith Dorothy, you with Gilbertine. A kind talk, mind you! one that willsoothe, not frighten. If a secret lurks in either breast our tendernessshould find it out. Only, as you love me, promise to show me the samefrankness I here promise to show you. Dear as Dorothy is to me, I swearto communicate to you the full result of my conversation with her,whatever the cost to myself or even to her."
"And I will be equally fair as regards Gilbertine. But, before weproceed to such extreme measures, let us make sure that there is noshorter road to the truth. Some one may have seen which of our two deargirls went back to the library after we all came out of it. That wouldnarrow down our inquiry and save one of them, at least, from unnecessarydisturbance."
It was a happy thought, and I told him so, but at the same time bade himlook in the glass and see how impossible it would be for him to venturebelow without creating an alarm which might precipitate the dread eventwe both feared.
He replied by drawing me to his side before the mirror and pointing tomy own face. It was as pale as his own.
Most disagreeably impressed by this self-betrayal, I colored deeplyunder Sinclair's eye and was but little, if any, relieved when Inoticed that he colored under mine. For his feelings were no enigma tome. Naturally he was glad to discover that I shared his apprehensions,since it gave him leave to hope that the blow he so dreaded was notnecessarily directed toward his own affections. Yet, being a generousfellow, he blushed to be detected in his egotism, while I--well, I ownthat at that moment I should have felt a very unmixed joy at beingassured that the foundations of my own love were secure, and that thetiny flask Sinclair had missed had not been taken by the hand of the oneto whom I looked for all my earthly happiness.
And my wedding-day was as yet a vague and distant hope, while his wasset for the morrow.
"We must carry down stairs very different faces from these," heremarked, "or we shall be stopped before we reach the library."
I made an effort at composure,
so did he; and both being determined men,we soon found ourselves in a condition to descend among our friendswithout attracting any closer attention than was naturally due him asprospective bridegroom and myself as best man.