Page:Vance--Terence O'Rourke.djvu/362

 O'Rourke replaced the letter in its envelope, frowning thoughtfully.

"Faith," he said aloud, "'tis something to have made a friend like Chambret—the saints presarve him!" And eagerly he opened the little packet which Chambret had mentioned as an enclosure. All during his reading of the letter it had lain squeezed tight in the palm of O'Rourke's clenched fist. Now he regarded it tenderly ere breaking the seals—a round, small package, no broader than a silver dollar, though twice as thick, wrapped in heavy, opaque paper and protected by many seals of violet-hued wax, bearing above the arms of Grandlieu the initial "B." It was entirely unaddressed.

"Beatrix!" whispered O'Rourke softly. He glanced hastily around the apartment, discovering that Danny had fallen asleep in a chair; he was practically alone, and he raised the packet to his lips and kissed the seals. "Beatrix!" he breathed.

He opened the small blade of his penknife and ran it under the edge of the wrapper, so preserving the seals intact; for had she not impressed them with those hands for whose caress the heart of O'Rourke was fairly faint?

Something fell into his hand—the half of a golden coin—a broken English sovereign, in fact. O'Rourke's eyes glowed as he fitted it to the other half, which hung dependent from his watch guard.

"Sweetheart!" he said. "Ye promised me ye'd send it—when ye needed me sword! Please God, I'll not be too late to save ye from that black-hearted scoundrel, Victor!"

But there was something else, and it was with a rapidly beating heart that O'Rourke removed it from the wrapper