Almost at once the lid flew open.
"I am afraid," he said, "that it is empty."
She peered in.
"No," she exclaimed, "there is something there! See!" She thrust
in her hand and drew out a small, curiously shaped dagger of fine
blue steel and a roll of silken cord. She held them up to him.
"What are these?" she asked. "Are they symbols--the cord and the
knife of destiny?"
He took them gently from her hand and replaced them in the box.
She heard the lock go with a little click, and looked into his
face, surprised at his silence.
"Is there anything the matter?" she asked. "Ought I not to have
taken them up?"
Almost as the words left her lips, she understood. His face was
inscrutable, but his very silence was ominous. She remembered a
drawing in one of the halfpenny papers, the drawing of a dagger
found in a horrible place. She remembered the description of that
thin silken cord, and she began to tremble.
"I did not know that anything was in the box," he said calmly. "I
am sorry if its contents have alarmed you."
She scarcely heard his words. The room seemed wheeling round with
her, the floor unsteady beneath her feet. The atmosphere of the
place had suddenly become horrible,--the faint odor of burning
leaves, the pictures, almost like caricatures, which mocked her
from the walls, the grinning idols, the strangely shaped weapons
in their cases of black oak. She faltered as she crossed the
room, but recovered herself.
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