“Well, will you go to her in the office, and say I wish you to bring me something out of the safe? She will not know what you bring. She will just hand you the key, and go on with her work.”
“Yes, I will go, brother. But are you sure she knows or suspects nothing? She may have seen the shoe.”
“Oh no; it is well wrapped up, and I am sure she would not touch the parcel. I can trust my secretary,” he added, with a new-born pride.
As Miss Jemima went down stairs, she wondered she had not long ago lighted on the discovery which her brother had now made. It explained many things. The tones and gestures which had so often startled her by their familiarity; the vague feeling that, at some time, she must have known this young girl before; the growing resemblance—evident to Miss Jemima’s eyes, at least—of the young secretary to “Cobbler” Horn—these things, which, with many kindred signs, Miss Jemima had hidden in her heart, had their explanation in the discovery which had just been made.
Miss Owen yielded the key of the safe without question. Though she appeared to take no notice of Miss Jemima’s doings, she knew, as by instinct, what Miss Jemima was taking out of the safe; and she told herself that she must not, and would not, let it appear that she supposed anything unusual was going on. She went on quietly with her work; but it was by dint of such an effort of self-control, as few human beings have ever found it necessary to make, or could have made.
As the result of the young secretary’s effort of self-repression, there appeared in her face, at the moment when Miss Jemima turned to leave the room, an expression so much like that assumed by the countenance of “Cobbler” Horn at times when he was very firm, that the heart of Miss Jemima gave a mighty bound.
Meanwhile Miss Jemima’s brother was eagerly awaiting her return. She had been absent less than five minutes, when she once more entered his room.
“There,” she said, holding the two little shoes out towards her brother, side by side, “there can be no doubt about the shoes, at any rate. They are a pair, sure enough. Why,” she continued, turning up the shoe that Miss Owen had produced, “I remember noticing, that very morning, that half the leather was torn away from the heel of one of the child’s shoes, just like that.”
As she spoke, she held out the shoe, and showed her brother that its heel had been damaged exactly as she had described. Then a strange thing happened to Miss Jemima. She dropped the little shoes upon the bed, and, covering her face with her hands, cried gently for a few moments. “The Golden Shoemaker” gazed at his sister in some wonder; and then two large tears gathered in his own eyes, and rolled down his cheeks.
All at once Miss Jemima almost fiercely dashed her hand across her eyes.