"Ah!" quoth Sinclair at this juncture, "I see that I have roused you at last." And unconsciously his tone grew lighter and his eye lost the strained look which had made it the eye of a stranger. "You begin to see that a question of the most serious import is before us, and that this question 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 our doubts? We can not approach either of these ladies with questions. A girl wretched enough to contemplate suicide would be especially careful to conceal both her misery and its cause. Neither can we order a search made 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 talk with Dorothy, you with Gilbertine. A kind talk, mind you! one that will soothe, not frighten. If a secret lurks in either breast our tenderness should find it out. Only, as you love me, promise to show me the same frankness I here promise to show you. Dear as Dorothy is to me, I swear to 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 we proceed to such extreme measures, let us make sure that there is no shorter road to the truth. Some one may have seen which of our two dear girls went back to the library after we all came out of it. That would narrow down our inquiry and save one of them, at least, from unnecessary disturbance."
It was a happy thought, and I told him so, but at the same time bade him look in the glass and see how impossible it would be for him to venture below without creating an alarm which might precipitate the dread event we both feared.
He replied by drawing me to his side before the mirror and pointing to my own face. It was as pale as his own.
Most disagreeably impressed by this self-betrayal, I colored deeply under Sinclair's eye and was but little, if any, relieved when I noticed that he colored under mine. For his feelings were no enigma to me. 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 not necessarily directed toward his own affections. Yet, being a generous fellow, he blushed to be detected in his egotism, while I—well, I own that at that moment I should have felt a very unmixed joy at being assured that the foundations of my own love were secure, and that the tiny flask Sinclair had missed had not been taken by the hand of the one to whom I looked for all my earthly happiness.
And my wedding-day was as yet a vague and distant hope, while his was set for the morrow.