I saw then that there was lying beside her plate a little red morocco case. Without looking at him, she pushed it along the table until his hand could reach it, and let her own arm lie passive there afterwards. He unfastened the case, and displayed a glittering and very beautiful bracelet.
"What do you think of that?" he cried. "Fit to adorn the prettiest and whitest arm in the world."
It was curious that, while her arm lay along the table, and he took his time in fitting the bracelet round the wrist, she kept her eyes fixed on me, so that her head was averted from him. Even when he had finished the business, and had put her hand to his lips for a moment, she did not look round; she only withdrew the hand quickly, and put it in her lap under the table. I saw his face darken at that, and those white dots come and go in his nostrils.
"A great day, I assure you, John, and we'll make a great day of it. We're having a little dinner-party to-night in honour of the event. Debora doesn't seem to care for pretty things much," he added a little sourly.
"Thank you; it is very kind of you," she murmured in a constrained voice; and put the arm that held the bracelet on the table.
I felt a poor creature, in more senses than one, in being able to give her nothing, and I felt that I wanted to tell her that. So I contrived a meeting in the grounds, out of sight of the house, and there for a moment I held her hand, and stumbled over what was in my heart.
"You know all the good things I wish you, dear Debora," I said. "I have no gift for you, because I'm too poor; besides, I didn't know what day it was. But my heart goes out to you, in loyalty and in service."
"I know—I know," she answered simply. "And that is why I want to say something to you—something that you must not laugh at."
"I should never do that," I assured her earnestly.
"John, I am growing desperately afraid," she said, glancing over her shoulder as she spoke, and shuddering. "It is not that anything fresh has happened; it is only that I feel somehow that something is hanging over me. It is in the air—in the doctor's eyes—in the looks of the woman Leach; it is like some storm brewing, that must presently sweep down upon me, and sweep me away. I know it—I know it."