For the Cause

by Stanley John Weyman

"An accident? Speak, quick! what is it?" she cried, her hand to her side.

"No, ma'am, but a burglary; and the Dean, who has just come, says----"

"The Dean, James, will speak for himself," said her husband, who had followed the group at a more leisurely pace, taking in the aspect of affairs as he came. He had heard the latter part of her words, and been softened, perhaps, by the look upon her face. "You have plenty of light here, my dear," with a glance at the illumination, in which annoyance and contempt were finely mingled; "but I fear that will not enable our guests to eat their supper in the absence of plate. Every spoon and fork has been stolen; a feat rendered, I expect, much more easy by this injudicious plan of yours."

Which was all the public punishment she received at his hands. But his news was sufficient. Mrs. Dean remembered her magnificent silver-gilt épergne and salver to match--never more to be anything but a memory to her--and fainted.

Mrs. Vrater, too, remembered that épergne. It was the finest piece in the Dean's collection, and the Dean's plate was famous through the county. She remembered it, and felt that her triumph could hardly have been more complete; the shafts of Nemesis could hardly have been driven into a more fitting crevice in her adversary's armor. This was what had come of the clergy dancing, of the Dean's weakness, and Mrs. Anson's secular frivolity and friendships! Mrs. Vrater looked round, her with a great sense of the wisdom of Providence, and ejaculated, "This is precisely what I foresaw!"

"Then it is a pity you did not inform the police," answered her husband, tartly.

But his lady shook her head. In the triumph of the moment she could afford to leave such a gibe unanswered. The Archdeacon was condoling with the Dean in terms almost cordial, and certainly sincere; but Mrs. Vrater was made of sterner stuff, and was not one to lose the sweetness of victory by indulging a foolish sympathy for the vanquished. She would annihilate all her enemies at one blow, and looked round upon the excited group surrounding Mrs. Anson to see that no one of that lady's faction was lacking to her triumph.

What was this? Surely she was here! The prime mover, the instigator of this folly, should have been in closest attendance upon her dear friend? But no.

"Where is Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby?" Mrs. Vrater asked rather sharply, what with surprise, and what with some pardonable disappointment.

"I believe," said the Dean, turning from his wife, who was slowly reviving--"I believe that the Hon. Mrs. Curzon-Bowlby is in the Mediterranean."