“I won’t,” and the pledge rang out clearly.
“Judith came to my office this afternoon and asked me to sell ten bonds of the Troy Valve Company. I advised her to borrow from her bank, offering them as collateral, and before she left she gave me the bond numbers, 37982 to 37991. She hadn’t been gone five minutes when my clerk brought me in ten bonds of the Troy Valve Company bearing those identical numbers. See for yourself,” and he laid a bundle of papers in John Hale’s hand. “The bonds had been sold to us not ten minutes before to cover margins in stock speculations when the market fell to-day.”
“Well, go on,” urged John Hale.
“The speculator and the man who sold the bonds are one and the same person—Joseph Richards. Now, how did Richards get hold of Judith’s bonds which, mind you, she expected to bring to me to-morrow?”
John Hale, who had followed Latimer’s slow speech with absorbed attention, answered almost automatically.
“Robert confided to me this evening that on careful examination of the contents of his safe to-day, he found that Judith’s bonds were missing.” He stopped, then added, “We have not told Judith.”
As the full meaning of her uncle’s words dawned on Judith she swayed upon her feet and in desperation clutched the glass and prevented it from slipping through her shaking fingers. Very softly she tiptoed through the dining room and out into the central hall. At the stairs she paused and, raising the glass, swallowed some of Anna’s “nightcap.” She was hardly conscious of the fiery undiluted liquor which burned her tongue and throat, but under the false strength it engendered she hurried up the staircase and came face to face with her husband on the top landing.
His face cleared at sight of her. “I was hurrying to find you,” he explained, and took the glass from her. “Your mother told me that she had sent you for this. I’ll take it to Anna. Go to bed, dearest.” And he sped away as Judith turned into their boudoir.
With slow, uncertain steps Judith made her way to her dressing table and fell rather than sat in the chair standing before it.
Her bonds had been stolen—Joe had sold them to Latimer to cover losses in speculation. The words rang their changes—but their distinct meaning beat itself against her brain and, with a low moan of anguish, she bowed her head upon her arms, thereby displacing the playing card which she had picked up earlier that evening in the library and flung unheeded on her dressing table. The red of it caught and held her eye, and suddenly she laughed loudly—unrestrainedly.