What had her father been doing that night? Why had she not insisted on his presence at the dinner? How she loathed each of those triumphant hours when the gems had risen and fallen on her happy breast. Her head suddenly fell forward on the dresser, and her shoulders heaved in deep-drawn sobs.
Miss Barry dropped the flower box on a chair, and her cheeks flushed as she advanced uncertainly. Her niece's previous reserve made the older woman feel that Linda might resent her presence now. She retreated a step toward the door; but no. The girl was her own flesh and blood. She didn't know what to say to her, and her own eyes dimmed under the repressed agony of those despairing sobs; but she approached and put a timid hand on the convulsed shoulder.
"Linda, Linda," she said. "I wish, poor child, I could do something." And the tremor in her voice carried to the young aching heart.
The girl did not raise her bowed head, but she reached up one strong, smooth hand, and quickly it was locked in Miss Belinda's.
The latter's eyes regarded the open morocco box on the dresser, and noted the lustrous pearls lying on their white velvet. "That necklace means something special, I suppose," she thought, and winked away big drops from her own sight.
"Maybe it'll do you good to cry, Linda," she said. "Did your father give you the beads, dear?" she added tenderly, and the smooth hand clutched hers tighter.
After a minute more of the sobbing silence, Miss Belinda reached out her free hand and closed the morocco box.
"I wouldn't look over these things yet," she said; and Linda freed her hand, and crossing her arms on the dresser rested her head upon them.
"I never did anything for Father," she declared in a choked voice.
Miss Barry thought this was probably true, and she winked hard in a big struggle with her New England conscience.