Jezebel's Daughter

'Ah, very well, my memory must have deceived me. This used to be Engelman's business; and you are as careful as he was—I can say no more.'

Mr. Keller replaced the money in the safe, and hastened back to his own office.

Mrs. Wagner raised one side of the ledger off the desk to close the book—stopped to think—and laid it back again.

The extraordinary accuracy of Mr. Keller's memory was proverbial in the office. Remembering the compliment which he had paid to her sense of responsibility as Mr. Engelman's successor, Mrs. Wagner was not quite satisfied to take it for granted that he had made a mistake—even on the plain evidence of the ledger. A reference to the duplicate entry, in her private account-book, would at once remove even the shadow of a doubt.

The last day of the old year was bright and frosty; the clear midday light fell on the open page before her. She looked again at the entry, thus recorded in figures—'15,000 florins'—and observed a trifling circumstance which had previously escaped her.

The strokes which represented the figures '15' were unquestionably a little, a very little, thicker than the strokes which represented the three zeros or 'noughts' that followed. Had a hair got into the pen of the head-clerk, who had made the entry? or was there some trifling defect in the paper, at that particular part of the page?

She once more raised one side of the ledger so that the light fell at an angle on the writing. There was a difference between that part of the paper on which the figures '15' were written, and the rest of the page—and the difference consisted in a slight shine on the surface.

The side of the ledger dropped from her hand on the desk. She left the office, and ran upstairs to her own room. Her private account-book had not been wanted lately—it was locked up in her dressing-case. She took it out, and referred to it. There was the entry as she had copied it, and compared it with the ledger—'20,000 florins.'

'Madame Fontaine!' she said to herself in a whisper.

CHAPTER XI

The New Year had come.

On the morning of the second of January, Mrs. Wagner (on her way to the office at the customary hour) was stopped at the lower flight of stairs by Madame Fontaine—evidently waiting with a purpose.

'Pardon me,' said the widow, 'I must speak to you.'

'These are business hours, madam; I have no time to spare.'

Without paying the slightest heed to this reply—impenetrable, in the petrifying despair that possessed her, to all that looks, tones, and words could say—Madame Fontaine stood her ground, and obstinately repeated, 'I must speak to you.'

Mrs. Wagner once more refused. 'All that need be said between us has been said,' she answered. 'Have you replaced the money?'

'That is what I want to speak about?'

'Have you replaced the money?'

'Don't drive me mad, Mrs. Wagner! As you hope for mercy yourself, at the hour of your death, show mercy to the miserable woman who implores you to listen to her! Return with me as far as the drawing-room. At this time of day, nobody will disturb us there. Give me five minutes!'

Mrs. Wagner looked at her watch.

'I will give you five minutes. And mind, I mean five minutes. Even in trifles, I speak the truth.'

They returned up the stairs, Mrs. Wagner leading the way.

There were two doors of entrance to the drawing-room—one, which opened from the landing, and a smaller door, situated at the farther end of the corridor. This second entrance communicated with a sort of alcove, in which a piano was placed, and which was only separated by curtains from the spacious room beyond. Mrs. Wagner entered by the main door, and paused, standing near the fire-place. Madame Fontaine, following her, turned aside to the curtains, and looked through. Having assured herself that no person was in the recess, she approached the fire-place, and said her first words.

'You told me just now, madam, that you spoke the truth. Does that imply a doubt of the voluntary confession——?'

'You made no voluntary confession,' Mrs. Wagner interposed. 'I had positive proof of the theft that you have committed, when I entered your room. I showed you my private account-book, and when you attempted to defend yourself, I pointed to the means of falsifying the figures in the ledger which lay before me in your own dressing- case. What do you mean by talking of a voluntary confession, after that?'

'You mistake me, madam. I was speaking of the confession of my motives—the motives which, in my dreadful position, forced me to take the money, or to sacrifice the future of my daughter's life. I declare that I have concealed nothing from you. As you are a Christian woman, don't be hard on me!'

Mrs. Wagner drew back, and eyed her with an expression of contemptuous surprise.

'Hard on you?' she repeated. 'Do you know what you are saying? Have you forgotten already how I have consented to degrade myself? Must I once more remind you of my position? I am bound to tell Mr. Keller that his money and mine has been stolen; I am bound to tell him that he has taken into his house, and has respected and trusted, a thief. There is my plain duty—and I have consented to trifle with it. Are you lost to all sense of decency? Have you no idea of the shame that an honest woman must feel, when she knows that her unworthy silence makes her—for the time at least—the accomplice of your crime? Do you think it was for your sake—not to be hard on You—that I have consented to this intolerable sacrifice? In the instant when I discovered you I would have sent for Mr. Keller, but for the sweet girl whose misfortune it is to be your child. Once for all, have you anything to say which it is absolutely necessary that I should hear? Have you, or have you not, complied with the conditions on which I consented—God help me!—to be what I am?'

Her voice faltered. She turned away proudly to compose herself. The look that flashed out at her from the widow's eyes, the suppressed fury struggling to force its way in words through the widow's lips, escaped her notice. It was the first, and last, warning of what was to come—and she missed it.