‘I put the gloves in my pocket,’ Gaston Arbuthnot reasserted, ‘and to the best of my remembrance wore them out in about a fortnight. They were iron-gray. A pair of iron-gray gloves would last one ten days or a fortnight, would they not?’
On this Dinah Arbuthnot started to her feet. She remembered Gaston’s talent, of old, for calm mystification, and her heart fired.
‘I have not re-opened the subject for amusement, Gaston. To show you that I would make amends in earnest, I will fetch the packet this moment. I shall feel easier when it is in your keeping, to destroy or keep, as you choose.’
Taking up a hand-lamp, Dinah passed into a neighbouring chamber. When she returned, in three or four minutes’ time, there was a pallor about her lips, a threatening of tears (the like of which during the past fifteen months had been happily absent) in her voice.
‘Baby has moved—has she not! I thought I heard her from my room.’
‘The infant sneezed,’ answered Gaston Arbuthnot with gravity. ‘Much to my terror. Sneezing might suggest waking. And to be alone with a waking baby recalls Dr. Johnson and the tower. Bring your wonderful packet here’—she had paused for a moment beside the child’s cradle—‘and let us have the scene out.’
‘We will never have a scene again while we live.’ Poor Dinah sank into her former kneeling position; she rested her cheek against her husband’s coat-sleeve. ‘Indeed, I think it might be fairer to you, more generous to Linda Thorne, to close the matter—thus.’
She held the packet in the direction of the flames.
With a quick movement Gaston Arbuthnot’s hand stayed her. He drew the contents forth from the envelope. He read Marjorie Bartrand’s ‘one word.’ Then he glanced at the blackened flower-stalks, at the bit of tarnished Spanish ribbon.