Ruth picked up the telegram and handed it to her mother.
"Another threat," she said, quietly. "These people, whoever they are, seem to be in deadly earnest."
Mrs. Morton took the telegram and hurriedly read it.
"Even the beauty of the rose," the message said, "cannot endure for twenty-seven days." There was no signature to the telegram.
A look of the deepest apprehension crept into Mrs. Morton's eyes, but she turned away, so that Ruth might not realize her fears.
"Pay no attention to the matter, Ruth," she said, in tones suddenly grown a trifle unsteady. "It is certainly nothing more than a stupid joke."
"Well, mother, of course you may be right, but for my part, I have a feeling that it isn't a joke at all, but a real and very terrible threat. What is to prevent these people, whoever they are, from attacking me—sending me some infernal machine in the disguise of a box or package, which, as soon as I open it, might burn or blind or otherwise disfigure me so that my life would be ruined?" She rose and glanced at herself in the mirror which hung over the mantel. Already there were deep circles of anxiety beneath her eyes, while the lines of her face, usually sweet and placid, were now those of an anxious and frightened woman. The first threat had upset her far more than her mother had realized. The one just received had intensified the effect a hundredfold.
"But you mustn't open any packages, my child. Be very careful about that. And Robert must not stop the car, under any circumstances, in going to or from the studio. There, at least, I believe you are quite safe. I will have a talk with Mr. Edwards to-day, and explain matters to him. And here you cannot possibly be in any danger. Meanwhile, in spite of what you say, I still beg you not to let this matter prey upon your mind. I cannot, will not, take it seriously." Poor Mrs. Morton, herself thoroughly frightened, strove with all her might to convince Ruth that she had nothing to fear. She knew the girl's intense, high-strung nature, and feared that constant worry, ceaseless anxiety, might readily so work upon her as to reduce her to a nervous wreck long before the expiration of the thirty days named in the first threatening letter. She found herself wishing devoutly that Duvall would appear.
As she finished speaking there came a ring at the doorbell, and Nora started to answer it. Mrs. Morton stopped her.
"Nora," she said. "Listen to me. You are not, under any circumstances, to admit anyone—no matter who it is—until I have first seen and talked with them. Do you understand?"