h pairs of eyes shining, and both faces dimpling with real or
affected gaiety. Indeed, if the matter had stopped there, I should have
thought myself the victim of some monstrous delusion; but when, a
half-hour later, I found this box missing from the cabinet where I had
hastily thrust it at the peremptory summons of our hostess, I knew that
I had not misunderstood the nature of the cry I had heard; that it was
indeed one of secret longing, and that the hand had simply taken what
the heart desired. If a death occurs in this house to-night----"

"Sinclair, you are mad!" I exclaimed with great violence. No lesser word
would fit either the intensity of my feeling or the confused state of my
mind. "Death _here_! where all are so happy! Remember your bride's
ingenuous face! Remember the candid expression of Dorothy's eye--her
smile, her noble ways! You exaggerate the situation. You neither
understand aright the simple expression of surprise you heard, nor the
feminine frolic which led these girls to carry off this romantic
specimen of Italian deviltry."

"You are losing time," was his simple comment. "Every minute we allow to
pass in inaction only brings the danger nearer."

"What! You imagine----"

"I imagine nothing. I simply know that one of these girls has in her
possession the means of terminating life in an instant; that the girl so
having it is not happy; and that if anything happens to-night it will be
because we rested supine in the face of a very real and possible danger.
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. For, preposterous as his idea was, reason told me that
he had some grounds for his doubt.

Dorothy, unlike Gilbertine Murray, was not to be read at a glance, and
her trouble--for she certainly had a trouble--was not one she chose to
share with any one, even with me. I had flattered myself in days gone by
that I understood it well enough, and that any lack of sincerity I might
observe in her could be easily explained by the position of dependence
she held toward an irascible aunt. But now that I forced myself to
consider the matter carefully, I could not but ask if the varying moods
by w