THE YELLOW DOVE
of the desk and taking the small object gingerly in her fingers, scrutinized it carefully. It was yellow in color, quite new, bound with a small rubber band, a very prosaic, a very harmless looking object to have caused so much excitement and trouble to all who had been concerned about it. She turned it over and stretched its rubber band, snapping it thoughtfully two or three times. Now for the first time since Cyril had given it to her did she permit herself to think of the hidden meanings the thing might possess. In the machine, during the chase Cyril had won her unreservedly to his side. As against the mysterious men of John Rizzio Cyril’s cause had been the only one to be considered. She had been carried off her feet and there hadn’t been time to think of anything but the real necessity of acceding to Cyril’s wishes in getting the small object to a place of safety. Then it had only been a packet of cigarette papers—a mere package of Riz-la-Croix which everybody, for some reason or other, seemed to want. Now, weighed lightly in her hand, the seclusion of her room gave it a different character. She recalled Cyril’s bantering tone at having been chased twenty miles for a cigarette. But his attitude deceived Doris no more than it had his pursuers. There was material here for something more deadly than cigarettes. She took the yellow packet in both hands and pressed it to her temples as though by this act she could pass its secrets into her own brain. In spite of herself she was frightfully curious and frightfully afraid.
She got up and paced the floor rapidly. No—it couldn’t go on. She must know the truth. As the key of the one unopened room fascinated Blue Beard’s wife, as the box fascinated Pandora, so this unopened
52
