“Yes,” she said, at length, “go, but I feel that we have not done with each other. Now, George, equip at once; we have kept our guests waiting!”
“No, mother, I cannot go to Marston Court; make my excuses!”
He went out, leaving no time for a rejoinder; and Lady Catherine followed. I was alone in the room.
All at once a strange sensation came over me. I looked around with a vague feeling of dread. Things that I had not before noticed were strangely familiar. It seemed as if I were in a dream, and without volition, and without object, I crossed the room toward a small antique cabinet that stood in one corner. The lids were deeply carved and set heavily with jewels. It is a solemn truth, I was unconscious of the act, but unclosing the cabinet reached forth my hand, and opened a small, secret drawer that was locked with a curious spring.
Among other trinkets, two lockets of gold lay within the drawer; one shaped like a shell, and paved thickly with pearls; the other plain, and without ornament of any kind. I took up the shell, and it sprung open in my hand, revealing two faces that seemed like something that had floated in my dreams years ago. One was that of a man in the first proud bloom of youth, with a brow full of lofty thought, but fair and of a delicate whiteness that we seldom see beyond infancy. The lips and the deep blue eyes seemed smiling upon me, and with a pang of love, for it was half pain, I kissed it. The female face I could not look upon. It seemed to me like the head of an evil spirit that was to haunt my destiny, and yet it possessed a wonderful fascination to me.
I laid the shell down, and with a sort of mysterious awe took up the other locket. It opened with difficulty, and when I wrenched the spring apart, it seemed as if my very soul had received a strain. It was a miniature also. I looked upon it and the claw of some fierce bird seemed clutched upon my bosom and throat. It appeared to me as if I struggled minutes and minutes in its gripe; then the pressure gave way, and with a burst of tears I cried out, “the face!—the face!”
A thin hand was thrust over my shoulder and snatched the locket away. I turned and saw it in the grasp of Lady Catherine. With a choking cry my hands were flung out, and I leaped madly upward striving to snatch it.
“Would you steal? Are you a thief?” she cried, grasping the locket tight, and holding it on high. “Would you steal? Are you a thief?”
The words went hissing through my ear. A hot flush of indignant shame clouded my sight, and I saw George Irving, as it were, through waves of crimson gauze, looking sternly upon me.
Then all grew black and still as death.