k it from a hand-bag," he rejoined.

Madame Beattie broke down and laughed. She gave the bracelet a final
snap.

"You're quite a clever boy," said she. "Alston Choate wouldn't have seen
that if he'd hammered at it a week. Yes, it was in Esther's bag. I don't
care much how it got out. The question is, how did it get in? How are
you going to shield Esther?"

He was aware that Esther was looking at him in a breathless waiting. The
hatred, he knew, must have gone out of her face. She was the abject
human animal beseeching mercy from the stronger. That she could ask him
whom she had repudiated to stand by her in her distress, hurt him like a
personal degradation. But he was sorry for her, and he would fight. He
answered roughly, at a venture, and he felt her start. Yet the roughness
was not for her.

"No. I shall do nothing whatever," he said, and heard her little cry and
Madame Beattie's assured tone following it, with an uncertainty whether
he had done well.

"You're quite decided?" Madame Beattie was giving him one more chance.
"You're going to let Esther serve her time in the dirty little man's
paper? It'll be something more than publicity here. My word! Her name
will fly over the globe."

He heard Esther's quick breathing nearer and nearer, and then he felt
her hand on his arm. She had crept closer, involuntarily, he could
believe, but drawn by the instinct to be saved. He felt his own heart
beating thickly, with sorrow for her, an agonising ruth that she should
have to sue to him. But he spoke sharply, not looking at her, his eyes
on Madame Beattie's.

"I shall not assume the slightest responsibility in the matter. I have
told you I took the necklace. You can say that in Weedon Moore's paper
till you are both of you--" he paused.

The hand was resting on his arm, and Esther's breathing presence choked
him with a sense of the strangeness of things and the poignant suffering
in mere life.

"I sha'n't mention you," said Madame Beattie. "I know who took the
necklace."

"What?"

His movement must have shaken the touch on his arm, for Esther's hand
fell.

"You don't suppose I'm a fool, do you?" inquired Madame Beattie. "I knew
it was going to happen. I saw the whole thing."

"Then," said Esther, slipping away from him a pace, "you didn't do it
after all."

If he had not been so shaken by Madame Beattie's words he could have
laughed with the grim humour of it. Esther was sorry he had not done it.

"So,"