The Widowed Bride — page 211: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

902 THE WIDOWED BRIDE. curious little drawers, with silver knobs inside, boxes, and needle caskets, each fitting into its peculiar niche with an. exactitude and economy of space only seen in articles of Hastern workmanship, but one deep, narrow receptacle, whose lid Rena lifted off, was empty. ‘‘. wonder what used to be kept here?” she asked, trying vainly to sound its depth with her slender forefinger. <‘‘See, Miss Clive, what a piece of ancestry I have found!” Miss Clive came from the opposite side of the room where she had been looking at one or two dingy old paintings, black with age, whose canvasses were cracked so as nearly to obliterate the subjects protrayed on their surface. ‘What is it?” she asked. ‘‘Let me look at it!” Rena made way for her—but as her eye fell on the quaintly carved box, yellew with age, and exhaling a sin- gular perfume of sandal-wood and teak, she uttered a low cry, and clasped her hands to her forehead. “You have seen it before?” asked Rena. ‘Then you can tell me its history—all these old things must have histories of their own. It belonged to Lady Glenhampton, when she came here a bride.” But Miss Clive did not seem to know what she was saying. ‘ History!” she gasped, the shades of pallor, deadly and transparent, coming and going on her cheeks. ‘‘Stop—let me think—let me comprehend! Yes, it has a history—you are right! The darkness shall be made light—the hidden things revealed!” “What do you mean, Miss Clive!” asked Rena, in sur- prise, while Mrs. Wadesleigh stood staring at her two com- panions in blank astonishment. | ‘“Miss Clive is ill!” she exclaimed. ‘‘Stay you with her, Miss Rena, while I go for a glass of water.” She hurried away, and Antonia turned to Rena with a haggard wildness. : “My dagger!” she said, in husky accents, which seemed to ooh gele up from beneath a great weight on her chest. ‘““My agger!”’ | Still Rena gazed at her, uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know what you mean!” Antonia caught. the concealed weapon from her breast. “Look for yourself, child!” she gasped. ‘‘Could the Lord’s hand point out a mystery more plainly? ‘There lies (ee) Eomicbooks nm