“Much mischief may be done in a week, and this
is the beginning of it,” muttered Treherne,
as he raised himself to look under the bronze vase
for the note. It was gone!
WHO WAS IT?
Who had taken it? This question tormented Treherne
all that sleepless night. He suspected three
persons, for only these had approached the fire after
the note was hidden. He had kept his eye on it,
he thought, till the stir of breaking up. In
that moment it must have been removed by the major,
Frank Annon, or my lady; Sir Jasper was out of the
question, for he never touched an ornament in the drawing
room since he had awkwardly demolished a whole etagere
of costly trifles, to his mother’s and sister’s
great grief. The major evidently suspected something,
Annon was jealous, and my lady would be glad of a pretext
to remove her daughter from his reach. Trusting
to his skill in reading faces, he waited impatiently
for morning, resolving to say nothing to anyone but
Mrs. Snowdon, and from her merely to inquire what the
note contained.
Treherne usually was invisible till lunch, often till
dinner; therefore, fearing to excite suspicion by
unwonted activity, he did not appear till noon.
The mailbag had just been opened, and everyone was
busy over their letters, but all looked up to exchange
a word with the newcomer, and Octavia impulsively
turned to meet him, then checked herself and hid her
suddenly crimsoned face behind a newspaper. Treherne’s
eye took in everything, and saw at once in the unusually
late arrival of the mail a pretext for discovering
the pilferer of the note.
“All have letters but me, yet I expected one
last night. Major, have you got it among yours?”
And as he spoke, Treherne fixed his penetrating eyes
full on the person he addressed.
With no sign of consciousness, no trace of confusion,
the major carefully turned over his pile, and replied
in the most natural manner, “Not a trace of
it; I wish there was, for nothing annoys me more than
any delay or mistake about my letters.”
He knows nothing of it, thought Treherne, and turned
to Annon, who was deep in a long epistle from some
intimate friend, with a talent for imparting news,
to judge from the reader’s interest.
“Annon, I appeal to you, for I must discover
who has robbed me of my letter.”
“I have but one, read it, if you will, and satisfy
yourself” was the brief reply.
“No, thank you. I merely asked in joke;
it is doubtless among my lady’s. Jasper’s
letters and mine often get mixed, and my lady takes
care of his for him. I think you must have it,
Aunt.”
Lady Treherne looked up impatiently. “My
dear Maurice, what a coil about a letter! We
none of us have it, so do not punish us for the sins
of your correspondent or the carelessness of the post.”
She was not the thief, for she is always intensely
polite when she intends to thwart me, thought Treherne,
and, apologizing for his rudeness in disturbing them,
he rolled himself to his nook in a sunny window and
became apparently absorbed in a new magazine.
