The Amethyst Box

, I had my own causes for excitement, and, finding the heat of the billiard-room insupp

ent strictly required, and small as the favor may seem to those who do not know Dorothy Camerden, to me, who realized fully both her delicacy and pride, it was a sign tha

pe with others of whose dissatisfaction and gloom I was yet mindful, when a sudden shadow fe

d to entertain the one profound passion of his life; but remembering his frequent causes of annoyance-causes quite apart from his bride and

he whispered. "Come where we shall

if not with alarm. "I never saw you look like this

gesture not to be mistaken. "The little room over

lated, if not despised, childhood, the idol of society and the recipient of general homage. The fault was not with her. But she had for guardian (alas! my dear girl had the same) an aunt who was a gorgon. This aunt must have been making herself disagreeable to the prospective bridegroom, and he, being quick to take offense, quicker than myself, it was said, had probably retorted in a way to make th

shed with an unusual light at dinner, was clouded now, and his manner, when he strove to speak, betrayed a nervousness I had considered foreign to his nature ever since the day I had seen him rein i

nows I would be glad to be proved so, but this thing has frightened me. I-" He paused and pulled himself together. "I will

he bush. Speak up!

d not interpret it; then coming closer, though there was no one within hearing,

sh enough to take out and show the ladies, because the little box which holds it is such an exquisite ex

d; call everybody into the drawing-room and explain the dangerous nature of this toy. After which, if any

ing eagerly on mine, shifted

er, would not relieve my fears at all. The person who

broke in, in increasing astonishmen

ver them preparatory to making a present to Gilbertine, I came across the little box I have just mentioned. It is made of a single amethyst and contains-or so I was assured when I bought it-a tiny flask of old but very deadly poison. How it came to be included with the other precious and beautiful articles I had picked out for her cadeau, I can not say; b

he question was such a natural one I never thought of evading it, besides, I enjoy the fearsome delight which women take in the marvelous. Expecting no greater result than lifted eyebrows or flushed cheeks, I answered

le drop of yellow liquid it still held. 'Poison!' I impressively announced. 'This trinket may have adorned the bosom of a Borgia or flashe

ne behind me, which, while faint enough to elude the attention of any ear less sensitive than my own, contained such an astonishing, if involuntary, note of self-betrayal that my mind grew numb with

rtaking in some indefinable w

ride and the woman I loved and whom he knew I loved, though

nged neither of u

sound!" I pr

before his eyes? Such a sound, with all that goes to make it eloquent, did I hear from one of the two girls who leaned over my shoulder. Can you understand this amazing, this unheard-of circumstance? Can you name the woman, can you name the grief capable of maki

ubt as to which of these two women uttered the cry which so startled y

ndeed, if the matter had stopped there, I should have thought myself the victim of some monstrous delusion; but when a half-hour later I found this box missing from the cabinet where I had hastily thrust it at the peremptory summon

e all are so happy! Remember your bride's ingenuous face! Remember the candid expression of Dorothy's eye-her smile-her noble ways! You exaggerate the situation. You nei

mment. "Every minute we allow to pass in

You i

g it is not happy, and that if anything happens to-night it will be because we rested supine in the face of a very real and possible danger. Now, a

rs is Dorothy," I finished with a lau

ld neither conceal nor avow. For preposterous as his idea

ence she held toward an irascible aunt. But now that I forced myself to consider the matter carefully I could not but ask if the varying moods by which I had found myself secretly harrowed had not sprung from a very different cause-a cause for which my persistent love was more to blame than the temper of her relative. The aversion she had once shown

er expression when she caught my look of joy had little of the demure tenderness of a maiden blushing at her first involuntary avowal. There was shrinking in it, but it was the shrinking of a frightened woman, not of an abashed girl; and when I strove to follow her, the gestu

hter and his eye lost the strained look which had made it the eye of a stranger. "You begin to see that a question

," sa

ief was

es with questions. A girl wretched enough to contemplate suicide would be especially careful to conceal both her mise

frighten. If a secret lurks in either breast our tenderness should find it out. Only, as you love me, promise to show me the same frankness I here promise t

there is no shorter road to the truth. Some one may have seen which of our two dear girls went back to the library after

in the glass and see how impossible it would be for him to venture below wit

before the mirror and pointing to m

I shared his apprehensions, since it gave him leave to hope that the blow he so dreaded was not necessarily directed toward his own affections. Yet, being a generous fellow, he blushed to be detected in his egotism, while I-well, I own that at t

a vague and distant hope, wh

faces from these," he remarked, "or we sha

d ourselves in a condition to descend among our friends without attracting any closer