This idea once admitted, jealousy of the crudest and most unreasonable
kind assailed her. Incidents, words, looks, long forgotten rushed back
upon her memory, and fed the flame. Very likely, if she left her child
and went to London, she might find Lady Suffolk in attendance on her
husband, or at least be compelled for his life's sake to submit to her
visits. She pondered this supposition until it brought forth one still
more shameful. Perhaps the whole story was a scheme to get her up to
London. Perhaps she might disappear there. What, then, would be done to
her child? If Richard Hyde was so infatuated with Lady Suffolk, what
might he not do to win her and her large fortune? Even the news of Lady
Capel's death was now food for her suspicions. Was she dead, or was the
assertion only a part of the conspiracy? If she had been dead, Sir
Thomas Swaffham would have heard of the death; yet she had seen him that
morning, and he had made no mention of the circumstance.
"To London I will not go," she decided. "There is some wicked plan for
me. The will and the papers are wanted, that they may be altered to
suit it. I will stay here with my child. Even sorrow great as mine is
best borne in one's own home."
She went to the escritoire to get the papers. When she opened the
senseless chamber of wood, she found herself in the presence of many a
torturing, tender memory. In one compartment there were a number of
trout-flies. She remembered the day her husband had made them--a long,
rainy, happy day during his last visit. Every time she passed him, he
drew her face down to kiss it. And she could hear little Joris talking
about the work, and his father's gay laughter at the child's remarks. In
an open slide, there was a rude picture of a horse. It was the boy's
first attempt to draw Mephisto, and it had been carefully put away. The
place was full of such appeals. Katherine rarely wept; but, standing
before these mementos, her eyes filled, and with a sob she clasped her
hands across them, as if the sight of such tokens from a happy past was
intolerable.
Drawer B was a large compartment full of papers and of Hyde's personal
treasures. Among them was a ring that his father had given him, his
mother's last letter, a lock of his son's hair, her own first
letter--the shy, anxious note that she wrote to Mrs. Gordon. She looked
sadly at these things, and thought how valueless all had become to him
at that hour. Then she began to arrange the papers according to their
size, and a small sealed parcel slipped from among them. She lifted it,
and saw a rhyme in her husband's writing on the outside,-"Oh, my love, my love! This thy gift I hold
More than fame or treasure, more than life or gold."