CHAPTER XI.
GERELDA COULD HAVE SAVED HER.
Hastily opening the door, Gerelda saw one of the maids.
"My mistress wishes to see you in the morning-room," she said. "I havebrought you some breakfast. You are to partake of this first; but mymistress hopes you will not be long."
Gerelda swallowed a roll and drank the tea and hastened to themorning-room. Here Gerelda found not only Mrs. Varrick, but every manand woman who lived beneath the roof of the Varrick mansion.
For a moment Gerelda hesitated.
Had some one discovered that she was in disguise, and informed Mrs.Varrick? She trembled violently from head to foot.
Mrs. Varrick broke in upon her confused thoughts.
"Pardon my somewhat abrupt summons, Miss Duncan," she said, motioningher to a chair, "but something has occurred which renders it imperativethat I should speak collectively to every member of this household.
"Most of you remember, no doubt, that I wore my diamond bracelet to theopera last night. When I returned home I unclasped it from my arm,myself, and laid it carefully away in my jewel-box. This morning it ismissing. My maid and I made a careful examination of the room where I amin the habit of keeping my jewels. We found that the room had not beenentered from the outside, that all the windows and doors were securelybolted on the inside. I am therefore forced to accept the theory that myroom was visited by some one from the inside of the house."
"Wasn't it amazing!" cried Jessie, turning to Miss Duncan. "A thiefwalking through the house in the dead of night, while we were allsleeping! I am sure I should have been frightened into hysterics had Iknown it."
A cold, calm look from Mrs. Varrick's steel-gray eyes seemed to arrestthe words on the girl's lips, and that strange, uncanny gaze sent athrill creeping down to the very depths of Jessie Bain's soul.
All in a flash, as Miss Duncan listened, she realized what was coming.
"Let no one interrupt me unless I invite them to speak," said Mrs.Varrick, continuing: "I will go on to say that the butler informs methat he found no door or window open in any part of the house, when heopened up the place this morning.
"Have you missed anything, Miss Duncan?"
"No," said Gerelda, quietly.
"And you, Miss Bain?"
"No. I have nothing that any thief would care to take," returned thegirl; "only this gold chain and this battered old locket which containsmy dead mother's picture, and I always wear this about my neck day andnight."
Mrs. Varrick asked the same question of every one present--"if they hadlost anything during the night"--and each one answered in a positivenegative.
"Then it seems that the thief was content with taking my diamondbracelet," she said, sharply.
Suddenly the housekeeper, who had been in Mrs. Varrick's service sinceshe had come there a bride, spoke out:
"I am sure nobody would object, ma'am, if the trunks and boxes of everyone in the house were to be examined."
Mrs. Varrick turned to the housekeeper.
"I should not like to say that I suspect any one," she answered. "I havesent for one of the most experienced detectives in the city, and amexpecting him to arrive at any moment. In the meantime, I desire thatyou will all remain in this room."
Miss Duncan had maintained throughout an attitude of politeindifference. Now she realized what that visit to Jessie Bain's room, inthe dead of the night, meant.
Then there commenced the greatest battle between Good and Evil that everwas fought in a human heart. Should she save her rival, the girl whomHubert Varrick loved, or by her silence doom her to life-long misery?While she was battling, Jessie smiled, murmuring in a low voice: "Isn'tit too bad, Miss Duncan, that Hubert--Mr. Varrick, I mean--should beaway from home just at this critical time?"
Miss Duncan's face hardened, and all the kindliness in her naturesuddenly died out.
The arrival, a little later, of the detective was a relief to every one.
Mrs. Varrick hastily explained to him what had occurred, and her reasonfor supposing that the theft of the diamond bracelet had beenaccomplished by some one in the house.
"Such a suspicion is, of course, very painful to me," she said; "butunder the circumstances I think it is better for the satisfaction of allconcerned that I should accept the offer made by my servants, andrequest you to search their apartments. Miss Duncan, and Miss JessieBain, my son's ward, will, just for form's sake, undergo the sameunpleasant ordeal."
"Must I have my room searched, too?" asked Jessie Bain.
"Is there any reason why you should object?" asked Mrs. Varrick.
"No," answered Jessie, lifting her beautiful, innocent blue eyes to theface of Hubert's mother; "there is no reason, only--only--"
Here she stopped short, the color coming and going on her lovely face,and a frightened look creeping about her quivering mouth.
"I have no objection," she repeated, "to having everything in my roomsearched; but, oh! it seems so terrible to have to do it!"
"Do your duty, sir," said Mrs. Varrick, turning to the detective.
She and the detective left the morning-room together, and they were allstartled at the sound of the key turning in the lock as the door closedafter them. Half an hour, an hour, and at length a second hour draggedslowly by.
Suddenly in the silence that had fallen upon the inmates of themorning-room they caught the distant sound of the detective's deepvoice and the rustle of Mrs. Varrick's silk dress coming down thecorridor.
Mrs. Varrick and the detective advanced to the center of the room, thenshe stopped suddenly.
"As you see," she commenced, in a high, shrill voice "the bracelet hasbeen unearthed and the thief discovered. I shall not prolong thispainful scene a moment longer than is absolutely necessary. Suffice itto say, the girl I have befriended has robbed me.
"The bracelet was found by the detective in the little hair trunk ofJessie Bain. You will all please leave the room, all save Miss Bain."
They all rose from their seats, and there was a great babble of voices.As in a dream, Jessie saw them all file slowly out of the room, each onecasting that backward look of horror upon her as they went. The doorclosed slowly after Miss Duncan; then she was alone with the detectiveand Mrs Varrick, Hubert's mother.
"There are no words that I can find to express to you, Jessie Bain, myamazement and sorrow," she began, "at this, the evidence of your guilt."
"Oh, Mrs. Varrick!" gasped Jessie, finding breath at last, though herhead seemed to reel with the horror of the situation, "by all that Ihold dear in this world, believe me, I am not guilty. I swear to you Idid not take your bracelet; I know as little of the theft as an unbornbabe!"
Mrs. Varrick drew herself up haughtily.
"The detective wishes me to give you up to the law, to cast you intoprison, but I can not quite make up my mind to do it. Now listen.Because of my son's interest in you, I will spare you on one condition,and that is, that you leave this place within the hour, and go faraway--so far that you will never again see any one who might know you;least of all, my son. His anger against you would be terrible."
All in vain Jessie threw herself at her feet, protesting over and overagain her innocence, and calling upon God and the angels to bear witnessto the truth of what she said.
The detective had been pacing up and down the room, an expression of thedeepest concern on his face.
He noted that instead of being glad to get off so easily from a terribleaffair that would cost her many a year behind grim prison walls, thisgirl's agonizing cry was that she should remain there and prove herinnocence to Hubert Varrick.
Surely, he thought, there must be some way of doing so. But Mrs. Varrickwas inexorable.
The girl's lovely head was bowed to the very earth.
"Have pity on me," moaned Jessie Bain, "and show me mercy!"
"I will give you ten minutes to decide your future," was Mrs. Varrick'sheartless reply.
When the ten minutes had elapsed, Mrs. Varrick rose majestic
ally to herfeet.