Page:Gibbs--The yellow dove.djvu/118

 She put her hand into her pocket, drew out the papers and went toward the hearth. Her hand was even extended toward the fire when, with a quick movement, he snatched the yellow packet from her fingers.

She fell away from him in dismay, as if she had been touched by something poisonous, touching her wrist and the fingers into which her rings had been driven. Then she hid her face in her hands and closed her eyes.

“Oh!” she gasped. “You’d pay my generosity—with this!”

He had examined the papers coolly and had put them into his pocket.

“I? I don’t count in a game like this—nor do you. I’m sorry. They were mine. You took them. I had to have them.”

“Then this” she stammered, “this was what you kept me here for?”

“I had to have them,” he repeated dully. That was all. Her wrist and fingers burned where he had hurt them. A brute—a coward—as well as a traitor. She straightened proudly and with a look at his bowed head, she went by him and out of the room.

Hammersley stood as she had left him for a moment and only raised his head when the parlor maid came in again and replaced the brasses on Lady Heathcote’s desk. In his eyes there came a keen look and he took a step forward.

“Do you always clean Lady Heathcote’s brasses on Friday?” he asked the maid.

She turned around with a startled air.

“Oh, yes, sir,” she replied demurely. “Friday, sir.”

“Oh!” said Hammersley. “Thanks.”

She stood a moment as if awaiting further questions and then went out.