Margie's venture

by Mary E. Ropes

"Now," said the old lady at last, "we have just about completed our search, I think. No thief would dream of putting a jewel of value into such an absurd place as an unlocked work-box or writing-desk, so suppose we leave this room now and go to the others?"

"Nonsense!" cried Mabel. "That desk is the very place for it. Let me look!" And with an eager assurance which she was not self-controlled enough to hide, she opened the desk, took out the packet of envelopes under which she had hidden the ring, and in her chagrin and amazement, committed herself in the involuntary sentence: "Good heavens! Why, the thing's gone!"

Then, suddenly realising what, in her excitement and disappointment, she had said, she looked up, met the accusing eyes of her good old aunt and the clear full gaze of Margie's grey eyes, and dropped her own.

"If you want to find your ring, Mabel, you must look for it, not in Margery's room, but in my jewel-case, where it now lies. You were seen last night hiding it in that desk, where you alone had any motive in looking for it to-day. God forgive you for your evil thought and deed against this poor innocent girl!"

Mabel said not a word. With her proud head drooping, she went to her own room, and stayed there all day. The maid who took up her meals said she appeared to be packing her things. And so it proved. The next day she went out early, without saying good-bye to any one, but when she was gone, the maids reported to Mrs. Beach that several boxes were there all ready packed and locked, and they brought a note addressed to her aunt in Mabel's writing.

It ran thus:

"DEAR AUNT,—When you got this, I shall have gone, never to return. Nick has given me up, and so, after all, I have sinned in vain. I thought he was in love with Margery, and I was determined to get her dismissed. But all is of no use. The fates are against me. Charles and Marion Digby have promised to include me in a theatrical touring company, and as you know I can act, sing, and dance, I may get on in time. Anyway, I shall never trouble you or yours again.
"MABEL RAYE."

Margie would perhaps have fretted more over the unhappy events just recorded had not her attention been distracted by two important pieces of news that reached her the same day.

One letter was from Mattie, who wrote in great grief, saying that things had suddenly come to a climax respecting Fay and Howard Logan. The girl had gone on amusing herself by encouraging him, until her own affections had become involved, and as the young man was really attached to her, Fay decided to give up Harry Mayne, whom she declared she had never loved as much as he loved her. Sir Peter Brooks on his side, and Mrs. Grayling on hers, did all they could to break off the intimacy between the young people; but the matter was decided by Fay and Howard running away together and being married at a registrar's office, much to the consternation of the families on both sides.

The second communication was from Harry himself. He wrote in very low spirits, saying that his letters to Fay had of late not been answered, or that when now and again she sent him a line, it was cold and constrained and wholly unlike the earlier correspondence. From a mutual acquaintance, too, he had heard that she had become very intimate with a nephew of Sir Peter, and that it was thought an engagement between the two young people, if not already actually existing, was imminent.