Chapter VI: The Plot Fails

WITHOUT a word, Mabel left the room, followed by Margie, and in a minute more, Mrs. Beach was in possession of the key.

"Now go away and send my maid to help me to dress," said the old lady, "and in an hour's time, we will go together and make a thorough search of Margery's room."

With a triumphant glance at Margie, Mabel went downstairs, and found Nicholas in the smoking-room.

"Well, Nick," she said, "that young and lovely attendant of your mother's will be sent packing to-day, I fully expect."

"I hope not," returned Nicholas stoutly. "Mother and Clara would be lost without her."

"They'd get over it fast enough," said Mabel scornfully. "And do you know, Nick, she is getting round Clara so fast, now nurse is not here, that I should not be surprised, if she left her money to Margery Grayling instead of to me, and then goodness knows if we should ever be married."

"We never shall, anyway," said the young man bluntly.

"Why, Nick," cried Mabel, dumbfounded, "you can't mean that!"

"I do mean it, Mab. I wouldn't marry you now, not if you'd a million sterling. I have been some time coming to this, but now my mind is quite made up. Now, no tears and reproaches, please. Nothing will change me."

What Mabel might have said in reply was prevented, much to the relief of the young man, by the entrance of a servant to say that Mrs. Beach was ready for Miss Mabel, and with a heart torn between wounded love and triumphant hate, the girl went up to join in, or rather to lead, the search. That this would be thorough and exhaustive Mrs. Beach would have taken care, even had Mabel been less eager; but the work-box and writing-desk were left to the last, Mabel fearing to call attention to the latter herself.

"Now," said the old lady at last, "we have just about completed our search, I think. No thief would dream of putting a jewel of value into such an absurd place as an unlocked work-box or writing-desk, so suppose we leave this room now and go to the others?"

"Nonsense!" cried Mabel. "That desk is the very place for it. Let me look!" And with an eager assurance which she was not self-controlled enough to hide, she opened the desk, took out the packet of envelopes under which she had hidden the ring, and in her chagrin and amazement, committed herself in the involuntary sentence: "Good heavens! Why, the thing's gone!"

Then, suddenly realising what, in her excitement and disappointment, she had said, she looked up, met the accusing eyes of her good old aunt and the clear full gaze of Margie's grey eyes, and dropped her own.

"If you want to find your ring, Mabel, you must look for it, not in Margery's room, but in my jewel-case, where it now lies. You were seen last night hiding it in that desk, where you alone had any motive in looking for it to-day. God forgive you for your evil thought and deed against this poor innocent girl!"

Mabel said not a word. With her proud head drooping, she went to her own room, and stayed there all day. The maid who took up her meals said she appeared to be packing her things. And so it proved. The next day she went out early, without saying good-bye to any one, but when she was gone, the maids reported to Mrs. Beach that several boxes were there all ready packed and locked, and they brought a note addressed to her aunt in Mabel's writing.

It ran thus:

"DEAR AUNT,—When you got this, I shall have gone, never to return. Nick has given me up, and so, after all, I have sinned in vain. I thought he was in love with Margery, and I was determined to get her dismissed. But all is of no use. The fates are against me. Charles and Marion Digby have promised to include me in a theatrical touring company, and as you know I can act, sing, and dance, I may get on in time. Anyway, I shall never trouble you or yours again.

"MABEL RAYE."

Margie would perhaps have fretted more over the unhappy events just recorded had not her attention been distracted by two important pieces of news that reached her the same day.

One letter was from Mattie, who wrote in great grief, saying that things had suddenly come to a climax respecting Fay and Howard Logan. The girl had gone on amusing herself by encouraging him, until her own affections had become involved, and as the young man was really attached to her, Fay decided to give up Harry Mayne, whom she declared she had never loved as much as he loved her. Sir Peter Brooks on his side, and Mrs. Grayling on hers, did all they could to break off the intimacy between the young people; but the matter was decided by Fay and Howard running away together and being married at a registrar's office, much to the consternation of the families on both sides.

The second communication was from Harry himself. He wrote in very low spirits, saying that his letters to Fay had of late not been answered, or that when now and again she sent him a line, it was cold and constrained and wholly unlike the earlier correspondence. From a mutual acquaintance, too, he had heard that she had become very intimate with a nephew of Sir Peter, and that it was thought an engagement between the two young people, if not already actually existing, was imminent.

The letter wound up thus:—

"I write to you, dear Margie, because I know that from you I shall always get the truth and nothing else. Also I have had the feeling that you cared for me more than the rest of the girls did, and that you will feel for and with me in this great sorrow. Write to me, dear sister that was to be, tell me all there is to tell; but if Fay has made her own deliberate choice between Logan and me, and loves him best, I have nothing to say. Let the child be happy in her own way, and God bless them both, say I.

"And as for you, dear, whose continued and steadfast affection I am somehow strangely counting on, as the one sweet thing left in my lonely life, do not grieve unduly for my sake. I have learned to see God's wisdom in all things, and to accept them as a child accepts all from his father's hand, whether good gifts or needful chastisement. Think of me and pray for me, my dear, that this sorrow may be sanctified to me, and make me better fitted for any work that the Master has yet for me to do.—Your loving brother that was to be, HARRY."

This letter, full of grief and yet of loving confidence, went straight to Margie's heart. Somehow as she read, over and over again, Harry's words of affection, and felt that he was counting on her love in return—sisterly, perhaps, but still love—some sudden awakening thrilled her with joy, and made known to her a truth at which she had not even so much as guessed before. She knew now that she—Margery Grayling—loved Harry Mayne as a woman loves but once in her life; she felt now, in looking back, that she had always loved him; and though, when he had shown a preference for Fay, she had resolutely determined not to think about her sister's betrothed, the love had lain dormant, not dead, ready to start up into new life at any time.

In spite of all that had happened to sadden her during the last day or two, her face was radiant when she went back to Clara after receiving and reading her letter.

"I suppose I am very silly, Miss Clara," she said, "but I have a letter from Harry this morning, and—"

"Harry Mayne, who, you told me, is engaged to your sister Fay?"

"Was engaged to her," corrected Margie. "She has just married some one else, and, of course, he is very sad; but—"

"But he turns to you for help and comfort, Margery?"

"Yes; but how did you know, Miss Clara?"

"I did not know, I only guessed; and as I long ago guessed that you cared a great deal for this same Harry, nothing now would surprise me."

"I feel as though I were getting beyond surprises too," replied Margie; "for, from the greatest distress, I seem to have jumped into happiness, though quite how and why, I don't think I can explain even to myself."

Clara only smiled, however, for what Margie could not explain was plain enough to her.