It fitted easily, and turned without any trouble; then, with a palpitating heart, she lifted the lid and peered inside.
There seemed to be only a few things in it, although she had supposed it would be quite full. A feeling of apprehension seized her then, and, dragging the box across the floor nearer to the open door, she knelt down beside it, sorting out the contents.
A dark blue merino dress, made in the fashion of fifteen years before; a black silk cape, the worse for wear, trimmed with beaded gimp; a black bonnet, with dark blue ribbon strings, and a bunch of pink roses under the coal-scuttle front;—these, with an armful of nondescript underwear, were all the box contained, saving a big stone wrapped in paper that lay at the bottom, and made it seem heavy.
Just at first indignation kept Nell’s grief in check. There had been good clothing in the box, she knew, and her mother’s little stock of jewelry, with a few odd remnants from her childhood’s home, of little worth to any one else, but of priceless value to her.
Feeling dazed and bewildered by the shock, Nell sat on the floor, with the heap of clothing in her lap, staring stupidly into the empty box. Then a fragment of paper with writing on it caught her attention, and, leaning forward, she picked it up.
The piece had been torn from a letter, and only a part of the sentence remained.
“Unless the money is paid within a week, I will give information, which will lead to your speedy arrest, and you will——”
Nell stood straight up, letting the lapful of garments drop unheeded on the floor.
She had seen that handwriting before, but where?
It was a habit of hers to stand up when any problem hard to solve forced itself upon her attention.
As she stood erect, staring straight before her, she saw the letter which a little while before she had found in the lining of her grandfather’s old coat, and at once she remembered that the writing on the envelope was identical with that on the slip she held in her hand.
With a bound she reached the table, and, seizing the envelope, dragged out the enclosure it contained.
She had felt no interest in it before, and no desire to pry into business which did not concern her. Now, however, all this was altered, and she deemed it her right to know what the letter contained.
Like the slip of paper in the box, it was curt and threatening, with no beginning in the usual way, but signed at the bottom with a great flourish.
“If I receive no money from you within a week, I will send some one to look you up. If you do not pay then, well, I will let the police know, and then you will soon see the inside of a prison, which may bring you to your senses and make you keep up your payments better.
“R. D. Brunsen.”
Nell gasped in her astonishment, for the man who had arrived at the Lone House yesterday in such a condition of exhaustion, had told her that his name was Bronson, Dick Bronson.
Was it possible that he had come to spy on her grandfather? Of course the story that he was travelling through the great forest on a pleasure jaunt might have been a fiction, only, somehow, her late visitor had struck her as being truthful and honest in his statements, and it was very disappointing to find herself mistaken in him. The names Bronson and Brunsen were so much alike that they might be the same, the difference lying only in pronunciation, for Mr. Bronson had only told her his name, he had not spelled it for her.
A long time she stood pondering over the matter, but quite unable to arrive at any definite conclusion concerning it. Then, warned by the slanting rays of the sun, she set to work preparing supper, in readiness for her grandfather’s return.
The letter she put in a prominent position on the supper-table. He would be sure to ask her where she had found it, then she would tell him all about it, and ask him why he had tampered with her property, which was contained in the box.
The sunset faded out in splendours of crimson and gold; then a cold wind stole across the ridge, rustling the millions of crisping leaves on the great forest trees, and night came brooding down.
Never during the years of her life at the Lone House had Nell felt so solitary as on this night. Hitherto, when her grandfather had remained away, she had had Pip for companionship and defence. But now the dog was breathing its last, no longer able to recognize her when she stooped to pat it, or to wag its tail in response to her voice.
The night was weird in its silence; she had no watch or clock to beguile her with its ticking, or to let her know how the slow hours were passing.
To-night she did not go upstairs to her loft, because she could not leave the dog. So, keeping the fire burning for the sake of companionship, she wrapped herself in the coat she had been mending, and lay down on the settle to rest.
But she had kept vigil on the previous night, from a fanciful dread lest harm should befall the stranger guest beneath their roof. She knew her grandfather’s disposition well, and that the old man would be quite capable of turning the stranger out in the night if the idea came into his head, so she had kept awake, in order to frustrate any design of the kind.
On this second night she also decided to keep watch, to see that Pip wanted for nothing. But healthy girls of seventeen cannot keep awake always.
Very soon the Lone House grew more silent still, the fire sank to a bed of red coals, which turned by slow degrees to white ashes. The laboured respiration of the dog grew intermittent and feeble, finally ceasing entirely. But Nell slumbered on in blissful unconsciousness until the morning sun threw broad beams of light across the uncleared supper-table, the spent fire, and the dead dog; then, with a little cry, she started into wakefulness.
CHAPTER IV
What the New Day brought
NELL sobbed and cried in a childish abandonment of grief when she found that Pip had died whilst she slept. But as no tears could restore the animal to life, the womanliness in her presently re-asserted itself, and she set to work to make the house clean and tidy, pending her grandfather’s return. After that she would dig a deep grave for poor faithful old Pip, in which she would lay the creature in readiness for burial, when Doss Umpey returned.
The exercise did her good, and as the sun was shining more brightly than ever, her mood grew almost cheerful as the day went on.
While sweeping under the settle, her broom—a home-made affair, consisting of rushes bound together—brushed out from under the settle a little leather case, which she had certainly never seen before.
Picking it up, she brushed the dust from it with her sleeve, then opened it to examine the contents.
At first sight it seemed to be quite empty, and the leaves of the memorandum book inside were innocent of pencil marks or writing of any description. There was a pocket in the case behind the book, however, and from this Nell drew out the photograph of a middle-aged lady, with the sweetest face she had ever seen. Something else the pocket contained also, and this was a packet of three clean ten-dollar notes.
“Oh, how could the case have come there?” she cried, peering under the settle to see that no more treasure-trove was lurking in the obscurity there.
But nothing else remained, not even dust, so effectually had the rush-broom done its work.
“Mr. Bronson must have dropped it from his pocket in the night. He was a bit restless some of the time,” she muttered, shivering a little as she thought of her uncomfortable vigil, sitting on the floor of the loft.
Then