Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/189

Rh cannot see a pin's point below the surface. The random shot took effect.

"You will do nothing of the kind," she said, severely. "I beg of you, Elsie, to do nothing rash. You will bring my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave," tearfully.

She had employed that expression ever since I could remember, and its dramatic force was impaired by old age. When I used to spoil my frocks at school, when I said rude things, when I insulted my governess, or when I overdrew my weekly allowance—errors with which she was always made acquainted—I was ever threatened with bringing her gray hairs in sorrow to the grave.

She walked to her secretaire, and sat down. Then, taking a sheet of note paper with a crest and monogram of enormous proportions, she scribbled a few lines in a bold, back-hand. Folding the sheet, she placed it in a heavily monogrammed envelope, which she left open as she handed it to me. It was addressed to Octavius Rickaby, Esq., Holborn Viaduct.

"Go there," she said, shortly.