“Rightful owner!” Frank Morrow stared at her. Nida McFay, his assistant, joined in the stare. “Rightful owner!” Morrow repeated. “You are the rightful owner. Your uncle bought that horsehair trunk at auction for three dollars. You purchased it from him for double that amount. This Bible was in the trunk. It is yours. The law will uphold you.”
“Yes. But is the law always right? Is there not a law higher than man’s law?” Grace’s tone was deeply serious.
“That,” said Frank Morrow, rather bluntly, “is for you to decide.”
“Decide,” she thought, “all I’ve done since I came to Chicago has been to decide, de—”
She broke off to stare at the door of the book shop. It had been quietly opened. A tall man stood there. He was well-dressed, far too well for Maxwell Street. He was neither young nor old. His features were regular. He seemed quite a gentleman. Then the girl got a look into his eyes. She shuddered. They were hard as steel.
Next instant she was staring at Nida McFay. Her face had gone ashy white. She was grasping the table as if about to fall.
When she was able to look again at the door, Grace found it closed. The man had vanished.
“It—it’s as if I had not seen him,” she told herself. One look at Nida, who was very white, told her that for the time at least it was better that the man should remain unseen.
“Whatever you do,” Frank Morrow was saying—he had not seen the stranger—“you should guard this Bible with great care. Beyond doubt, it was given by Queen Elizabeth as a token of great esteem to some Protestant bishop. Someone doubtless inherited this Bible containing the Queen’s signature and brought it to America. Where has it been since? Who knows? Enough that it is here and that many a collector of rare books would, even in these times, pay a king’s ransom to possess it. So guard it with care!”
“The Bi—Bible. Oh, yes.” The girl put her hands upon it.