The Beloved Stranger - By Grace Livingston Hill Page 0,37
she to explain it to herself? And yet—!
She unfastened the window with a shaking hand and, touching the switch of her flashlight, went carefully over the porch, and inch by inch down the walk where they had passed, not forgetting the grassy edges on either side. On her way back she stopped, and her cheeks grew hot in the dark as she held back the branches of privet and stepped within that cool green quiet hiding place. Oh, if she could but find it here! If only it had fallen under the shrubs. It would have been very easy for it to come unfastened while he held her in his arms. If only she might find it and be set free from that haunting fear. Just to know that he was all right. Just to be sure—! She felt again the pressure of his arms about her, so gentle, the touch of his lips upon her eyelids. It had rested and comforted her so. It hadn’t seemed wrong. Yet of course he was an utter stranger!
But she searched the quiet hiding place in vain. There was no answering gleam to the little light that went searching so infallibly, and at last she had to come in and give it up. There was utter dejection in her attitude when she came back to Aunt Pat, her lip trembling, her eyes filled with large unshed tears, that haunting fear in their depths. For of course she could not help but realize that that moment when he held her in his arms would have been a most opportune time for a crook to get the emeralds.
“There isn’t a sign of them anywhere!” she said.
“Well,” said Aunt Pat, “you can’t do anything more tonight. Get to bed. You look worn to a thread. I declare, for anybody who went through the evening like a soldier, you certainly have collapsed in a hurry. Lose a bridegroom, and take it calmly. Lose a bauble and go all to pieces! Well, go to bed and forget it, child! Perhaps we’ll find it in the morning.”
“But Aunt Pat!” said Sherrill, standing tragically with clasped hands under the soft light from the old alabaster chandelier, with her gold hair like a halo crowning her. “Oh, Aunt Pat! You don’t suppose—he—took it, do you?”
“He?” said the old lady sharply, whirling on her niece. “Whom do you mean? Your precious renegade bridegroom? No, I hadn’t thought of him. I doubt if he had the nerve to do it. Still, it’s not out of the thinking.”
“Oh, Aunt Pat! Not Carter! I didn’t mean Carter.” She said, astonished, “Of course he wouldn’t do a thing like that!”
“Why ‘of course’?” snapped Aunt Pat grimly. “He knew the value of those stones, didn’t he? And according to his own confession, he needed money, didn’t he? If he would steal a girl’s love and fling it away, why not steal another girl’s necklace? Deception is deception in whatever form you find it, little girl! However, I suppose Carter McArthur had enough on his hands this evening for one occasion, and he likely wouldn’t have had the time to stage another trick. But I hope you are not trying to suspect that poor innocent bystander that you dragged into your service this evening!”
“He was a stranger!” said Sherrill with white anxious lips and frightened eyes.
“Hmm! Did he act to you like a crook, Sherrill Cameron?”
“No, Aunt Pat! He was wonderful! But—”
“Well, no more buts about it. Of course he had nothing to do with it. I know a true man when I see him, even if I am an old maid, and I won’t have a man like that suspected in my house! You don’t really mean to say you haven’t any more discernment than that, do you?”
“No,” said Sherrill, managing a shaky smile. “I’m sure he is all right, but I was afraid you would think—”
“There! I thought as much! You thought I had no sense. Well, go to bed. We’re both dead for sleep. And don’t think another thing about this tonight! Mind me!”
“But—oughtn’t I to call the police?”
“What for? And have them demand a list of our guests and insult every one of them? No emeralds are worth the losing of friends! Besides, nobody can do anything about it tonight anyway. Now get to bed. Scat!”
Sherrill broke into a little hysterical laugh and, rushing up to her aunt, threw her arms around her neck and gave her a tender kiss.