She was awakened by a commotion. It was broad daylight, and her husband (not yet as sober as he might be) was shaking her by the arm. Edwards was standing outside the door, calling out to know whether Mrs. Bird had “got it.”
“What is the matter, George?” she cried, starting up in a fright, and for the moment completely forgetting where she was, for she had been aroused from a vivid dream of Timberdale.
“Have you been bringing anything up here from the sitting-room, Lucy?” asked Captain Bird.
“No, nothing,” she replied promptly, and he saw that she spoke with truth. For Lucy’s recollection had not come to her; she remembered nothing yet about the earring.
“There’s something missing,” said Captain Bird, speaking thickly.
“It has disappeared mysteriously off the sitting-room table. You are sure you have not been down and collared it, Lucy?”
The earring and the theft—her own theft—flashed into her memory together. Oh, if she could only avert suspicion from herself! And she strove to call up no end of surprise in her voice.
“Why, how could I have been down, George? Did you not see that I was fast asleep? What have you missed? Some money?”
“Money, no. It was—something of Edwards’s. Had it close by him on the table when he went to sleep, he says—he lay on the sofa last night, and I had his bed—and this morning it was gone. I thought the house was on fire by the way he came and shook me.”