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Alas! that was the question which we of all men were most anxious to hear answered. Who? Gilbertine or Dorothy? Gilbertine's door was reached first. In it stood a short, slight figure, wrapped in a hastily-donned shawl. The white face looked into ours as we stopped, and we recognised little Miss Lane. "What has happened?" she gasped. "It must have been an awful cry to waken everybody so!"
You would clear my wedding-eve of a great dread if you could, for if this expression of concealed misery came from Gilbertine " "Do you mean," I cried in vehement protest, "that you really are in doubt as to which of these two women uttered the cry which so startled you? That you positively cannot tell whether it was Gilbertine or or " "I cannot; as God lives, I cannot!
Thereupon, quite against my will, I found myself thinking of Dorothy's changed position before the world. Only yesterday a dependent slave; to-day, the owner of millions. Gilbertine would have her share a large one but there was enough to make them both wealthy. Intolerable thought! Would that no money had been involved! I hated to think of those diamonds and Oh, anything was better than this!
He told me afterward that he was so taken up with the effect of this suggestion on Gilbertine that he forgot to look at Dorothy, though the hint he strove to convey of impending trouble was meant as much for her as for his affianced bride. In another moment he regretted this, especially when he saw that Dorothy had changed her attitude, and was now looking away from them both.
But the thought of Dorothy nerved me; perhaps also my real friendship and commiseration for Sinclair. "Gilbertine," I began, "I will make no pretence of misunderstanding you. The situation is too serious, the honour which you do me too great; only, I am not free to accept that honour. The words which I uttered were meant for your cousin Dorothy. I expected to find her in this room.
Ordinarily she was a little pale, but not even Gilbertine, with her sumptuous colouring, showed a warmer cheek than she, as, resting from the waltz, she leaned against the rose-tinted wall, and let her eyes for the first time rise slowly to where I stood talking mechanically to my partner. Gentle eyes they were, made for appeal, and eloquent with a subdued heart language.
Nor did Sinclair stir a foot, though his eye, which had been wandering restlessly over the faces about him, now settled inquiringly on the doorway. For whom was he looking? Gilbertine or Dorothy? Gilbertine, no doubt, for he visibly brightened as her figure presently appeared clad in a négligée, which emphasised her height, and gave to her whole appearance a womanly sobriety unusual to it.
Now, as Gilbertine has never given me reason to doubt either her affection for myself or her satisfaction in our approaching union, I have allowed myself " "To think that the object of your fears is Dorothy," I finished, with a laugh I vainly strove to make sarcastic. He did not answer, and I stood battling with a dread I could neither conceal nor avow.
All this in the twinkling of an eye. Meanwhile, misled by my words, Gilbertine drew back a step, and, with her face still bright with the radiance I have mentioned, murmured in low, but full-toned accents: "Not just yet; it is too soon. Let me simply enjoy the fact that I am free, and that the courage to win my release came from my own suddenly acquired trust in Mr. Sinclair's goodness.
But if in either breast the one dominant sentiment was fear horrible, blood-curdling fear then was that fear confined to Dorothy; for while Gilbertine advanced bravely, Dorothy's steps lagged, and at the point where she should have turned into the library, she whirled sharply about, and made as if she would fly back upstairs.
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