CHAPTER XIV "IT MIGHT BE YOU"
Marion caught her breath quickly. The marble pallor of her face showed up more strongly against her dark hair. Geoffrey caught the look and his eyes grew sympathetic.
"What's the matter, little girl?" he asked. "It isn't like you to faint."
"Neither am I going to faint, Geoff. But I had forgotten all about that box. I cannot go into details, for there are some things that we don't talk about to anybody. But that box is connected with rather an unhappy time in my youth."
"Hundreds of years ago," Geoffrey said flippantly.
"Oh, but it is no laughing matter, I assure you. When my mother was a child she was surrounded by all the craft and superstition of her race and religion. That was long before she got converted and married my father. I don't know how it was managed, but my mother never quite broke with her people, and once or twice, when she went to stay in Tibet, I accompanied her.
"My mother used to get restless at times, and then nothing would do but a visit to Tibet. And yet, at other times, nobody could possibly have told her from a European with foreign blood in her veins. For months and months she would be as English as you and I. Then the old fit would come over her.
"There was not a cleverer or more brilliant woman in India than my mother. When she died she gave me these things, and I was not to part with them. And, much as I should like to disobey, I cannot break that promise."
It seemed to Geoffrey that Marion spoke more regretfully than feelingly. He had never heard her say so much regarding her mother before. Affectionate and tender as Marion was, there was not the least trace of these characteristics in her tone now.
"Did you really love your mother?" Geoffrey asked suddenly.