CHAPTER VIII. A MIDNIGHT CRIME.
How oft men use the gifts of God
To aid their plans and cloak their sins;
At nightfall, silence reigns above
And deviltry on earth begins.
The noise was merely the shivering to atoms of a small venetian vase which stood on a diminutive ebony table not far from the divan on which Stella was seated.
Mrs. Sinclair had accidently struck the table, and the gossips declared afterward, in the privacy of their own Boudoirs, that she was watching her son at the very time when his accidental touching of Stella's hand had wrought so fearful a change upon his features, and, quite naturally, they argued that an intuitive fear for her adopted daughter's future made her hand unsteady. At any rate, she had turned suddenly pale and grasped the slender table for support with the result already mentioned.
Maurice sprang promptly forward, and motioning to a servant to remove the fragments of glass, offered his arm gracefully to his mother and passed up the room to where the Countess Martinet was sitting with her angular daughter.
Stella took this opportunity to join the Misses Huntington on a neighboring sofa and again the strains of music floated through the spacious parlors and partners were soon whirling gaily about in the witcheries of a glorious waltz.
Never had Stella looked so superbly beautiful as to-night, with the graceful folds of her exquisite white satin draperies clinging about her charming figure. The gold of her hair scintillated in myriad iridescent rays about her broad forehead and snowy neck, while the gleaming diamond star that shown upon her bosom vied with the sparkling lustre of her eye, and in the opinions of the gentlemen, at least, paled woefully in the comparison.