It
was an afternoon which Feversham was long to remember; for the next
night was the night of the dance, and as the band struck up the opening
bars of the fourth waltz, Ethne left her position at the drawing-room
door, and taking Feversham's arm passed out into the hall.
The hall was empty, and the front door stood open to the cool of the
summer night. From the ballroom came the swaying lilt of the music and
the beat of the dancers' feet. Ethne drew a breath of relief at her
reprieve from her duties, and then dropping her partner's arm, crossed
to a side table.
"The post is in," she said. "There are letters, one, two, three, for
you, and a little box."
She held the box out to him as she spoke,--a little white jeweller's
cardboard box,--and was at once struck by its absence of weight.
"It must be empty," she said.
Yet it was most carefully sealed and tied. Feversham broke the seals and
unfastened the string. He looked at the address. The box had been
forwarded from his lodgings, and he was not familiar with the
handwriting.
"There is some mistake," he said as he shook the lid open, and then he
stopped abruptly. Three white feathers fluttered out of the box, swayed
and rocked for a moment in the air, and then, one after another, settled
gently down upon the floor.
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