Dare you say they are not the ones
reproduced in the portrait below?"
Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. "My God!
My God!" was his only reply, "what are these?" Suddenly he rose, his
whole form quivering, his eyes burning. "Where is Mrs. Daniels?" he
cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. "I must see her at
once. Send the house-keeper here," he ordered as Fanny smiling
demurely made her appearance at the door.
"Mrs. Daniels is out," returned the girl, "went out as soon as ever
you got up from dinner, sir."
"Gone out at this hour?"
"Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir."
Her master frowned. "Send her to me as soon as she returns," he
commanded, and dismissed the girl.
"I don't know what to make of this," he now said in a strange tone,
approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer
with a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be
strangely commingled. "I cannot explain the presence of these articles
in this room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to
make other matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me
to take anyone into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me
to hope any longer to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns.
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