“What’s the matter?” I inquired quickly as I took her hand, fearing that the man she loathed had already called upon her.
“Nothing serious,” she laughed. “I have only a piece of very good news for you.”
“For me—what?”
Without answering, she placed on the table a small plain silver cigarette-box, upon one corner of the lid of which was engraved the cipher double B, that monogram that was upon all Blair’s plate, carriages, harness and other possessions.
“See what is inside that,” she exclaimed, pointing to the box before her, and smiling sweetly with profound satisfaction.
I eagerly took it in my hands and raising the lid, peered within.
“What!” I cried aloud, almost beside myself with joy. “It can’t really be?”
“Yes,” she laughed. “It is.”
And then, with trembling fingers, I drew forth from the box the actual object that had been bequeathed to me, the little well-worn bag of chamois leather, the small sachet about the size of a man’s palm, attached to which was a thin but very strong golden chain for suspending it around the neck.
“I found it this morning quite accidentally, just as it is, in a secret drawer in the old bureau in my father’s dressing-room,” she explained. “He must have placed it there for security before leaving for Scotland.”