ELSIE FINDS THE BRACELET.
There was a dinner engagement the next day. When Elizabeth came down to
the library in full dress, her husband sat moodily over the fire. He
looked up as she entered, and gazed upon her with mournful admiration,
for her beauty that day was something wonderful; unabated excitement had
fired her eyes with a strange lustre, and lent a rich scarlet to cheeks,
from which protracted suspense had of late drained all the color. Her
dress, of rose colored silk, was misty with delicate lace that shaded
her neck and arms like gossamer on white lilies. Star-like jewels
flashed in the rich blackness of her hair and shone through the soft
lace. The calm loveliness of former days was nothing to the splendor of
her beauty now a feverish restlessness was upon her,--a glow of pain
conquered by courage.
Mellen arose from his seat as his wife came in with the graceful rush of
a cloud across the sky. He watched her approach gloomily. It seemed to
him that her first impulse was to flee when she saw him sitting there,
but if so the desire was quickly controlled, and she came up to the
hearth, standing so near him that the folds of her dress brushed his
arm.
"You are ready too," she said. "But it is impossible to say how long we
shall have to wait for Elsie and Mrs. Harrington!"
He made no answer; she began clasping and unclasping her bracelets, but
was watching him all the while from under her downcast lashes.
"Are you ill, Grantley?" she asked at length.
"Oh! no; quite well."
"You are so silent, and you sat there in such a dreary way, I feared
something was the matter."
He made an effort to rouse himself and shake off the oppression--the
heavy, heavy weight which had lain on his soul all day.
"I am only stupid," he replied, with an attempt at playfulness. "I have
been forced to talk so incessantly to those people, that I have no ideas
left."
"I am sure conversation with people in general doesn't consume one's
ideas," she said, with a lightness which appeared forced like his own.
"How long does Mrs. Harrington stay?" he asked.
"Only till to-morrow. You don't like her, I fancy?"
"There is too much of her in every way," he said, peevishly; "she
dresses too much, talks too much--she tires one."
"That is very cruel and ungrateful; the lady confided to me only a
little while ago that she had a profound admiration for you, and was
dying to get up a flirtation, if I did not mind."
"Don't repeat such nonsense," he said, almost rudely, "you know how I
hate it. I think either the married man or woman who flirts, deserves to
be as severely punished as if he or she had committed an actual crime."
"I am afraid you would condemn the greater part of our acquaintance,"
she said. "After all, with most women it arises only from
thoughtlessness."
"Thoughtlessness!" he repeated satirically. "I can only say that the
woman who endangers her husband's peace from want of thought, is more
culpable than a person who does wrong knowingly, urged on by
recklessness or passion."
"I have never thought about it," said Elizabeth vaguely; "it may be so."
She was playing with her bracelets again; the action reminded him of the
lost trinket. He did not speak, but a restrained burst of passion broke
over his face, which might have changed a plan she was revolving in her
mind, had she seen or understood it.
It was too late!
That moment Elsie came dancing into the room, her thin evening dress
floating around her like a summer cloud, her fair hair wreathed with
flowers, and everything about her so pure and ethereal, that it seemed
almost as if she must breathe some more joyous air than the
pain-freighted atmosphere which weighed so heavily on others. She was
holding her hands behind her, and ran towards them in her childish way,
exclaiming:
"I have found something! Who'll give a reward? Won't you both be
glad--guess what it is!"
Mellen's face had brightened a little at her entrance, but as she spoke
a sudden thought shook his soul like a tempest.
"What is it?" Elizabeth asked.
"Oh, guess, guess!"
"But I never can guess," she replied, seeming to enter into the spirit
of the thing.
"You try, Grant. Come, do credit to your Yankee descent!"
He rose suddenly and stood looking full in his wife's face, fixing her
glance with a quick thrill of terror, which the least thing unusual in
his manner caused her now.
Elsie began to dance up and down before the hearth, exclaiming:
"Oh! you provoking things--you stupid owls! Now do guess--oh! Grant,
just try. Tell me what I have found."
Mellen's eyes had not moved from his wife's face.
"Have you found Elizabeth's bracelet?" he asked in a tone which made the
unhappy woman shiver from head to foot, and startled Elsie out of her
playfulness.
"Why, how did you think of that?" demanded Elsie; "did she tell you?
Have you----"
She stopped short, the words frozen on her lips by the look which
Grantley Mellen still fixed upon his wife. Without changing that steady
gaze, he extended his hand towards Elsie.
"Give me the bracelet!" he said, in the cold, hard tone which, with him,
was the sure forerunner of a tempest of passion.
Elsie hesitated; she had grown nearly as pale as Elizabeth herself, but
she looked like a frightened child. Elizabeth did not speak or move, but
though her face was absolutely death-like, her eyes met her husband's
with unflinching firmness.
"Give me the bracelet!" repeated Mellen.
"Here it is!" exclaimed Elsie, nervously, putting the bracelet in his
hand. "What is the matter with you, Grant? I am sure there is nothing to
make a fuss about. I found the bracelet among a lot of rubbish in one of
Bessie's drawers--I suppose she forgot it was there."
Grantley Mellen turned furiously towards her.
"Are you learning to cheat and lie also?" he said.
Elsie burst into a passionate flood of tears.
"You are just as cruel and bad as you can be!" she moaned. "You ought to
be ashamed to talk so to me! I haven't done anything; I thought you
would be so pleased at my having found the bracelet, and here you behave
in this way. You needn't blame me, Grant--I don't know what it all
means! I am sure your dear mamma never thought you would speak to me
like that! I wish I was dead and buried by her--then you'd be sorry----"
"I am not angry with you, child," interrupted Mellen, softened at once
by this childish appeal. "Go away and find Mrs. Harrington, Elsie. The
falsehood and the treachery are not yours--thank God! at least my own
blood has not turned traitor to me!"
Elizabeth sank slowly in a chair; Elsie stole one frightened look
towards her, then the woman in her confusion and dizziness saw her float
out of the room, and she was alone with her husband. He held the
bracelet up before her eyes, his hand shaking so that the jewels flashed
balefully in the light.
"Your plan was carried out too late; you should have had it found
before!" he said, and his last effort at self-control was swept away.
She must speak--must try to stem the tide, and keep back a little longer
the exposure and ruin which for days back some mysterious warning had
told her was surely approaching.
"I don't know what you mean," she faltered.
"I mean that the bracelet was found where you put it!" interrupted
Mellen.
"Why should I have hidden it? What reason--"
"Stop!" he broke in. "Not another word--not a single falsehood more! You
brought this bracelet back with you from the city--don't speak--I went
to the pawnbroker's--it had just been taken away."
In the whirl of that unhappy woman's senses the words seemed to come
from afar off; the lights were dancing before her eyes; the flashing
gems blinded her with their rays, but she still controlled herself. She
must make one last effort--she must discover how much of the truth he
knew--there might be some loophole for escape--some effort by which she
could avert a little longer the coming earthquake.
"Why don't you speak?" he cried. "Say anything--another lie if you
will--anything rather than this black truth! That man; you know him!
Speak, I say!"
"What man?" she faltered.
"That traitor--that wretch! He had the bracelet; he got it from you!
Explain, I say--woman, I will have an explanation."
"I never gave the bracelet away," she said, desperately. "I have no
explanation to make. I will not open my lips while you stand over me in
that threatening way."
"Will you defy me to the last?" he exclaimed.
"You can only kill me," she moaned; "do it and let me have peace!"
He flung the bracelet down upon the table.
"I have loved you, and I know that you are false!"
"What do you suspect?" she demanded. "What do you know?"
The momentary weakness of passion passed; the husband stood up again
cold and stern.
"I know," he said, "that this bracelet was in the hands of a bad, wicked
man; only yesterday he took it from the pawnbroker's, and now I find it
in your possession."
There was a hope; only in another deception; but she must save herself;
while there was a thread to grasp at, she could not allow herself to be
swept down the gathering storm.
"And is there no possibility that I may be innocent in all this?" she
exclaimed. "If I receive an anonymous letter, telling me I can find my
bracelet by paying a certain reward, is it not natural that I should go?
Knowing your strange disposition, is it not equally natural that I
should keep the whole thing a secret, and strive to make every one
believe that the bracelet had been mislaid."
"Is this true?" he cried. "Can you prove to me that you speak the
truth?"
She was not looking at him; the apathy of despair which came over her
seemed like sullen obstinacy.
"I can prove nothing," she said; "if it were possible I would not make
the effort. Do what you like; believe what you please; I will defend
myself no more."