"Ah, me!" Christina breathed. "Nor I! If only I hadn't been there, and seen!"
"You did it yourself! You did it yourself! You did it yourself! Ask Nancy Cornish!"
Christina sank on her knees beside the bed, in an agony of terror and tenderness, and for the first time since she had seen the lock of hair, her tears poured forth. But she took the girl's hand and held it; and she tried to master those feverish eyes with the eyes of her own despair. "Nancy!" she said, "Nancy! It's Christina. Nancy dear, it's Chris. Oh, try to know me. Look at me. Listen to me. You must know me. You shall. Nancy, stop it! Stop it and look at me!—Oh, God!" Christina prayed. "Help me! Help me!" She caught the sick girl in her arms and covered the young little face with tears and kisses.
And as she held Nancy on her breast she became aware of a thin ribbon round the girl's neck, with a key to it. She picked up this strange ornament, and immediately Nancy's fingers came creeping in search of it and she cried out. Christina dropped it and rose to her feet. "Why!" she said aloud. "It's the key to my desk!" The desk stood against the wall and she tried it. It was locked. Nancy lay almost quiet clutching the key. Christina stood there, puzzled.
In a drawer of the dressing-table there was a key much the same in shape and size. Christina took it out, drew the ribbon from Nancy's neck, and, steeling her heart, plucked open Nancy's hand. The girl set up a shrill cry but was instantly quieted by the substitute key; the old woman could be heard rattling with a tray at the foot of the stairs.
Christina sprang to the desk and opened it; it was in order and almost empty, containing no object that Christina did not know. She pulled open one after the other of the three little drawers. And thus she came, with an amazed start, upon a bulky envelope bearing an address which was the last she could have expected. The envelope was addressed to the District-Attorney of New York.
Christina appropriated it without pause or scruple, slipped it into her little handbag and restored Nancy's property almost with one swift movement. She was sitting on the edge of the bed in an attitude of listless dejection when the housekeeper entered with the tray.
"Well," said the old woman, "why don't you take her? Mebbe everything ain't just as you expected. What'd she yell out like that for?"
"I touched that ribbon round her neck. What has she got clutched in her hand?"
"Oh, just some old trash! Better leave it be. She yells blue murder if you try to take it away from her."