"I must take him the key myself," she muttered, as she moved about the dressing room, and then a sudden thought came, and she moved quickly to an open wardrobe, pulled down the dress she had worn on the previous afternoon, and searched hurriedly in the pockets.
All at once a look of dismay overspread her features; again and again she shook out the silken folds, again thrust her hands in the dainty pockets, and fluttered her fingers among the intricacies of the trimming. The thing she searched for was gone. Sybil Lamotte's strange letter, the letter that was a trust not to be violated, was not to be found.
Thoroughly distressed now, Constance renewed her search—about the room—everywhere—in the most impossible places; but no letter.
Down stairs she went; and hopeless as was the chance of finding it there, hunted in the drawing room and on the terrace.
She distinctly remembered placing it in her pocket, after receiving it back from the hands of Doctor Heath; of bestowing it very carefully, too.
Who had been in the drawing room since Doctor Heath? Mrs. Aliston; the two detectives; herself. Who had seen her put the letter in her pocket? Only Doctor Heath. Could it have dropped from her pocket? That seemed impossible. Could he have removed it? That seemed impossible, too, and very absurd. But what could she think, else? Then, she remembered what he had said to the detective the night before, and all the mystery surrounding his past. Hitherto, she had scoffed at the prying ones, and advocated his perfect right to his own past and future, too. Now, she felt her ignorance of aught concerning the life of Doctor Clifford Heath, to be a deep personal injury. Hitherto, she had reasoned that his past was something very simple, a commonplace of study, perhaps, and self-building; for she, being an admirer of self-made men, had chosen to believe him one of them. Now, she bounded straight to the conclusion that Doctor Heath had a past—to conceal; and then she found herself growing very angry, with him first, and herself afterward.
Why had he not presented his passports before seeking her favor? How had he dared to make himself so much at home in her drawing room, with his impertinent insouciance and his Sultan airs? How had he gone about, indifferent, independent, ignoring when he pleased, courting no one's favor, and yet, be—nobody knew who.
And what a fool she had been, trusting him with her personal secrets; putting her private letters into his hands. How he must be laughing at her in his sleeve! Exasperating thought. Worse than all else, to be laughed at. What worse calamity can befall poor, arrogant human nature?
Constance was now thoroughly angry, and, "by the same token," thoroughly unreasonable. It is highly objectionable in a heroine; but Constance, as we have said before, is a very human heroine. And, dear reader, however sensible you be, if you have ever been in just the state of mind in which Constance Wardour found herself that morning, and most of us have, I promise you, you were not one whit more reasonable; not one whit less capable of being aggressive, unreasonable, and generally disagreeable.
And now, the perverse imp who goes about, concocting horrible practical jokes, and stirring up contretemps, seemed to take possession of the field; for, just at the moment when he should have been at least five miles away, Doctor Heath, unannounced, appeared at the drawing-room door,—smiling, too, looking provokingly sure of a welcome, and handsomer than usual.