brightness in the widow's eyes. "Do you
know what I am thinking?" Minna asked, a little timidly.

"What is it, my dear?"

"I think you are almost too fond of me, mamma. I shouldn't like to be the
person who stood between me and my marriage--if _you_ knew of it."

Madame Fontaine smiled. "You foolish child, do you take me for a
tigress?" she said playfully. "I must have another kiss to reconcile me
to my new character."

She bent her head to meet the caress--looked by chance at a cupboard
fixed in a recess in the opposite wall of the room--and suddenly checked
herself. "This is too selfish of me," she said, rising abruptly. "All
this time I am forgetting the bridegroom. His father will leave him to
hear the good news from you. Do you think I don't know what you are
longing to do?" She led Minna hurriedly to the door. "Go, my dear one--go
and tell Fritz!"

The instant her daughter disappeared, she rushed across the room to the
cupboard. Her eyes had not deceived her. The key _was_ left in the lock.

CHAPTER II

Madame Fontaine dropped into a chair, overwhelmed by the discovery.

She looked at the key left in the cupboard. It was of an old-fashioned
pattern--but evidently also of the best workmanship of the time. On its
flat handle it bore engraved the words, "Pink-Room Cupboard"--so called
from the color of the curtains and hangings in the bedchamber.

"Is my brain softening?" she said to herself. "What a horrible mistake!
What a frightful risk to have run!"

She got on her feet again, and opened the cupboard.

The two lower shelves were occupied by her linen, neatly folded and laid
out. On the higher shelf, nearly on a level with her eyes, stood a plain
wooden box about two feet in height by one foot in breadth. She examined
the position of this box with breathless interest and care--then gently
lifted it in both hands and placed it on the floor. On a table near the
window lay a half-finished watercolor drawing, with a magnifying glass by
the side of it. Providing herself with the glass, she returned to the
cupboard, and closely investigated the place on which the box had stood.
The slight layer of dust--so slight as to be imperceptible to the
unassisted eye--which had surrounded the four sides of the box, presented
its four delicate edges in perfectly undisturbed straightness of line.
This mute evidence conclusively proved that the box had not been moved
during her quarter of an hour's absence in Mr. Ke