Left with the long day ahead of her, restless and lonely, she gave the small house a thorough sweeping and cleaning. She had finished her dusting, and was rearranging the furniture, when she shoved back the long chest and struck the framework of the window with some little violence. It was enough to jar a rusty key from its place above the casement, and it dropped upon the chest with a kind of ominous clink as it struck the lock, and fell upon the floor. She took it up and looked at it curiously, and then, kneeling, fitted it in the lock.
"I wonder," she mused, "what I shall set free if I open this box; is it Pandora's? But there was nothing left in hers but hope, and that is all we need. How happy we could be if we dared to hope!"
She turned the key with a wrench, and the hasp shot from its place. The chest was nearly empty, there being but one parcel in it. This was done up carefully in a square of linen, pinned here and there. On the bottom of the chest were several folds of white paper. Very slowly she lifted out the parcel and opened it. The treasure was a gown; it was of a heavy, satiny weave of linen, very yellow and creased. The bodice was made without sleeves or neck, and the skirt was a kind of kilt plaited affair; the whole effect was Greek, and, simple as it was, it seemed beautiful to Robin after her year of dark, utilitarian clothing. There was white underwear, and even white stockings, and a pair of slippers.
Robin drew a long breath of delight, and laying all her finery upon the table placed the irons over the tripod that she might smooth the wrinkles out, and set about making the necessary alterations at once. She worked rapidly in spite of her excitement, but the hours slipped away.
"I must try it on," she said, "before Adam comes; there will be plenty of time, and then I will put it away until—"
Shroud or wedding-gown? She did not finish the sentence. She dressed slowly; but when she had finished she was startled to see that the image in the glass was so much fairer than she had ever thought herself. Suddenly she discovered, with something like a pang, that there was no belt, and hurried back to the chest to look again.
As she twitched out the remaining layer of paper in her eagerness, a long white satin ribbon dropped from it, and a little heap of fine muslin lay on the floor of the chest. She caught up the ribbon with an exclamation of delight and adjusted it with trembling fingers. Her flushed cheeks and radiant eyes, the long heavy braid of hair, her round white arms and shoulders, made her a vision of delight indeed. When she had quite completed her toilet, she sat down by the chest to inspect its last secret. As she took up the pile of lace and muslin, her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. She had forgotten. Only the hands of the prospective mother could have fashioned such dainty garments as these. Everywhere the eternal question. All her perplexities had fallen from her in the joy of dressing herself as Adam's bride should be decked, howbeit Adam saw her not, but the great problem of life confronted her still.
She put the tiny garments down on the chest, closed now, having given up its mystery, its hope of the world, and knelt by it, touching them with loving, reverent fingers till the tears blinded her, and she gathered up the clothes and kissed them as she had never kissed Adam, as she had never kissed anything in her life. After awhile the tears ceased to flow, and there stole over her a gracious calmness and then the slumber of a child.
She did not hear Adam, nor see him, until he passed the window and stood in the doorway, all the sunset glow back of him. Then she started to her feet, her arms closing instinctively over the tiny garments she had gathered to her breast, as she stepped back, her face flushing and paling all in a moment.
He stood as if he dared not move lest the vision vanish, but heart and soul looked out of his eyes.