This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable

kind assailed her. Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back

upon her memory, and fed the flame. Very likely, if she left her child

and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her

husband, or at least be compelled for his life's sake to submit to her

visits. She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still

more shameful. Perhaps the whole story was a scheme to get her up to

London. Perhaps she might disappear there. What, then, would be done to

her child? If Richard Hyde was so infatuated with Lady Suffolk, what

might he not do to win her and her large fortune? Even the news of Lady

Capel's death was now food for her suspicions. Was she dead, or was the

assertion only a part of the conspiracy? If she had been dead, Sir

Thomas Swaffham would have heard of the death; yet she had seen him that

morning, and he had made no mention of the circumstance.

"To London I will not go," she decided. "There is some wicked plan for

me. The will and the papers are wanted, that they may be altered to

suit it. I will stay here with my child. Even sorrow great as mine is

best borne in one's own home."

She went to the escritoire to get the papers. When she opened the

senseless chamber of wood, she found herself in the presence of many a

torturing, tender memory. In one compartment there were a number of

trout-flies. She remembered the day her husband had made them--a long,

rainy, happy day during his last visit. Every time she passed him, he

drew her face down to kiss it. And she could hear little Joris talking

about the work, and his father's gay laughter at the child's remarks. In

an open slide, there was a rude picture of a horse. It was the boy's

first attempt to draw Mephisto, and it had been carefully put away. The

place was full of such appeals. Katherine rarely wept; but, standing

before these mementos, her eyes filled, and with a sob she clasped her

hands across them, as if the sight of such tokens from a happy past was

intolerable.

Drawer B was a large compartment full of papers and of Hyde's personal

treasures. Among them was a ring that his father had given him, his

mother's last letter, a lock of his son's hair, her own first

letter--the shy, anxious note that she wrote to Mrs. Gordon. She looked

sadly at these things, and thought how valueless all had become to him

at that hour. Then she began to arrange the papers according to their

size, and a small sealed parcel slipped from among them. She lifted it,

and saw a rhyme in her husband's writing on the outside,-"Oh, my love, my love! This thy gift I hold

More than fame or treasure, more than life or gold."




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