Kate glanced at Nollie Tresselton, wondering if she had overheard; but Nollie, in the far corner of the box, leaned forward, deep in the music. Joe Tresselton had vanished, Landers slumbered in the rear. With a little tremor of satisfaction, Kate saw that she had her daughter’s secret to herself: if there was no one to enlighten her about it at least there was no one to share it with her, and she was glad. For the first time she felt a little nearer to Anne than all the others.
“It’s odd,” she thought, “I always knew it would be some one from a distance.” But there are no real distances nowadays, and she reflected with an inward smile that the fugitive would doubtless soon reappear, and her curiosity be satisfied.
That evening, when Anne followed her into her bedroom, Mrs. Clephane opened the wardrobe in which she had placed the jewel-box. “Here, my dear; you shall choose one thing for me to wear. But I want you to take back all the rest.”
The girl’s face clouded. “You won’t keep them, then? But they’re all yours!”
“Even if they were, I shouldn’t want them any longer. But they’re not, they’re only a trust—” she paused, half smiling—“a trust till your wedding.”
She had tried to say the word lightly, but it echoed on through the silence like a peal of silver bells.
“Oh, my wedding! But I shall never marry,” said Anne, laughing joyously, and catching her mother in her arms. It was the first time she had made so impulsive a movement; Kate Clephane, trembling a little, held her close.
It brought the girl nearer, made her less aloof, to hear that familiar old denial. “Some day before long,” the mother thought, “she’ll tell me who he is.”
VI.
KATE CLEPHANE lay awake all night thinking of the man who had been too shy to come into the box.