"You are truly a woman of resources, Mrs. Routh. Who would ever have thought of your having all those things ready at a moment's notice?"
Harriet made no reply, but she could not quite conceal the disconcerting effect of his words.
"If I have made a blunder in this," she thought, "it is a serious one, but I have more to do, and must not think yet."
She sat down, cleared a space on the table, placed the bracelet and the little tools before her, and set to work at once at her task of demolition. It was a long one, and the sight was pitiful as she placed jewel after jewel carefully in a small box before her, and proceeded to loosen one after another. Sometimes George took the bracelet from her and aided her, but the greater part of the work was done by her. The face bent over the disfigured gold and maltreated gems was a remarkable one in its mingled expression of intentness and absence; her will was animating her fingers in their task, but her mind, her fancy, her memory, were away, and, to judge by the rigidity of the cheeks and lips, the unrelaxed tension of the low white brow, on no pleasing excursion. The pair worked on in silence, only broken occasionally by a word from George, expressive of admiration for her dexterity and the celerity with which she detached the jewels from the gold setting. At length all was done--the golden band, limp and scratched, was a mere commonplace piece of goldsmith's work--the diamonds lay in their box in a shining heap, the discarded turquoises on the table; and all was done.
"What shall we do with these things?" asked George. "They are not worth selling--at least, not now--but I think the blue things might make up prettily with the gold again. Will you keep them, Mrs. Routh? and some day, when I am better off, I'll have them set for you, in remembrance of this night in particular, and of all your goodness to me in general."
He was looking at the broken gold and the turquoises, thinking how trumpery they looked now--not at her. Fortunately not at her, for if he had seen her face he must have known--even he, unsuspicious as he was--that she was shaken by some inexplicably powerful feeling. The dark blood rushed into her face, dispersed itself over her fair throat in blotches, and made a sudden dreadful tingling in her ears. For a minute she did not reply, and then Dallas did look at her, but the agony had passed over her.
"No--no," she said; "the gold is valuable, and the turquoises as much so as they can be for their size. You must keep them for a rainy day."
"I'm likely to see many," said George, with half a smile and half a sigh, "but I don't think I'll ever use these things to keep me from the pelting of the pitiless shower. If you won't keep them for yourself, Mrs. Routh, perhaps you'll keep them for me until I return."
"O yes," said Harriet, "I will keep them. I will lock them up in my desk; you will know where to find them."
She drew the desk towards her as she spoke, took out of it a piece of paper, without seeing that one side had some writing upon it, swept the scattered turquoises into the sheet, then folded the gold band in a second, placed both in a large blue envelope, with the device of Routh's last new company scheme upon it, and sealed the parcel over the wafer.