a safety deposit in
New York perhaps. Don't ask me."

"But don't you care?" cried Lydia, all of a heat of wonder--terror also
at melodramatic thieving here in simple Addington.

"I can care about things without screaming and sobbing," said Madame
Beattie briefly. "Though I sobbed a little at the time. I was a good
deal unstrung from other causes. But of course I laid it before Jeff, as
her husband--"

"He must have been heartbroken."

"Well, he was her husband. He was responsible for her, wasn't he? I told
him I wouldn't expose the creature. Only he'd have to pay me for the
necklace."

The yellow-white face wavered before Lydia. She was trying to make her
brain accept the raw material Madame Beattie was pouring into it and
evolve some product she could use.

"But he couldn't pay you. He'd just got into difficulties. You said so."

"Bless you, he hadn't got into any difficulty until Esther pushed him in
by helping herself to my necklace. He turned crazy over it. He hadn't
enough to pay for it. So he went into the market and tried a big _coup_
with all his own money and the money he was holding--people subscribed
for his mines, you know, or whatever they were--and that minute there
was a panic. And the courts, or whatever it was, got hold of him for
using the mails for fraudulent purposes or whatever, and he lost his
head. And that's all there was about it."

Lydia's thoughts were racing so fast it seemed to her that she--some
inner determined frightened self in her--was flying to overtake them.

"Then you did it," she said. "You! you forced him, you pushed him--"

"To pay me for my necklace," Madame Beattie supplied. "Of course I did.
It was a very bad move, as it proved. I was a fool; but then I might
have known. Old Lepidus told me the conjunction was bad for me."

"Who was Lepidus?"

"The astrologer. He died last month, the fool, and never knew he was
going to. But he'd encouraged me to come on my concert tour, and when
that went wrong I lost confidence. It was a bad year, a bad year."

A troop of conclusions were rushing at Lydia, all demanding to be fitted
in.

"But you've come back here," she said, incredulous that things as they
actually were could supplement the foolish tale Madame Beattie might
have stolen out of a silly book. "You think Esther did such a thing as
that, and yet you're here with her in this house."

"That's why I'm here," said Madame Beattie patiently. "Jeff's back
again, and