The woman took from among the folds
of her dress, a small writing-case of satin wood,
formed like a scroll. Touching a spring, she opened
it, took out implements for writing, and some note-paper,
which emitted a faint and very peculiar perfume, as
she began to write. After tracing a few hasty
lines, she folded the paper, placed it carefully in
an envelope, and proceeded to seal it. Taking
from her pocket a singular little taper box of gold,
covered with antique chasing, she lighted one of the
tapers, and dropped a globule of green wax upon her
note, which she carefully impressed with a tiny seal
taken from another compartment of the taper box.
Agnes watched all this dainty preparation
with a look of half-sarcastic surprise. When
the note was placed in her hand, she examined the address
and the seal with parted lips, as if she would have
smiled, but for a feeling of profound astonishment.
“To General Harrington.
The seal a cupid writing on a tablet. Well, what
am I to do with this?”
“Leave it upon General Harrington’s
library-table after breakfast, to-morrow morning that
is all.”
The woman arose, folded up her writing
case, and gathering the voluminous folds of her shawl
from the moss, where it had been allowed to trail,
turned away. Agnes watched her as she disappeared
through the forest trees with a rapid step, fluttering
out her shawl now and then, like the wings of some
great tropical bird.
“I wonder who she really is,
and what she would be at?” muttered the girl.
“Do all girls distrust so much? Now, this
note shall I read it, and learn what mystery
links her with the family up yonder? Why not?
It is but following out her own lessons, so it be
done adroitly.”
Agnes placed her finger carefully
upon the envelope, and with a steady pressure, forced
it from under the wax.
“Ha! neatly done!” she
exclaimed, taking out the enclosed, and unfolding
it with hands that shook, spite of herself, “and
a fool for my pains, truly. I might have known
she would baffle me written in cypher, even
to the name. Well, one thing is certain, that
my witch and old General Harrington understand each
other, that is something gained. If I had but
time, now, to make out these characters, and and”
She broke off almost with a shriek,
for a hand was reached over her shoulder, and the
note taken suddenly from her grasp, while she stood
cowering beneath the discovery of her meanness.
The woman whom she had supposed on the other side
the hill, stood smiling quietly upon her. Not
a word was spoken. The woman took out her taper
box, dropped some fresh wax beneath the seal, and
smiling all the time, handed the note back again.
Agnes turned her face, now swarthy
with shame, aside from that smiling look, and began
to plunge her little foot down angrily into the moss,
biting her lips till the blood came. At last,
she lifted her head with a toss, and turning her black
eyes boldly on the woman, said, in a voice of half-tormenting
defiance, “Very well, what if I did open it?
My first lesson was, when you and I read Mrs. Harrington’s
letter. If that was right, this is, also.”
“Who complained? Who, in
fact, cares?” was the terse answer, “only
it was badly done. The next time you break a
seal, be sure and have wax of exactly the same tint
on hand. I thought of that, and came back.
It would ruin all, if General Harrington saw his letters
tampered with.”
“You are a strange woman!”
said Agnes, shaking off the weight of shame that oppressed
her, and preparing to go.
“And you, a strange girl.
Now go home, and leave the note as I directed.
In a day or two we shall meet again. Almost any
time, at nightfall you will find me here. Good
night!”
“Good night,” said Agnes,
sullenly, “I will obey you this once, but remember
my reward.”
Again the two parted, and each went
on her separate path of evil the one lost
in shadows, the other bathed in the light of a warm
sunset.
It did not strike the woman, as she
toiled upward to her solitary dwelling, that she was
training a viper which would in the end turn and sting
her own bosom. Her evil purposes required instruments,
and without hesitation, she had gathered them out
of her own life. But, even now, she found them
difficult to wield, and hard to control. What
they might prove in the future remained for proof.