ne in the play--yet I
feel as if--But no, I don't want to say it."

"You must say it," I cried.

"Well, if only to hear you contradict me, then. I feel as if I were in
danger of losing you. It's just a feeling--a weight on my heart. Nothing
more. Rather womanish, isn't it?"

"Not womanish, but foolish," I said. "Shake off the feeling, as one
wakes up from a nightmare. Think of to-morrow. Meeting then will be all
the sweeter." As I spoke, it was as if a voice echoed mine, saying
different words mockingly. "If there be any meeting--to-morrow, or
ever."

I shut my ears to the voice, and went on quickly:

"Before we say good-bye, I've something to show you--something you'll
like very much. Wait here till I get it from the next room."

Marianne was tidying my dressing-room for the night, bustling here and
there, a dear old, comfortable, dependable thing. She was delighted with
my success, which she knew all about, of course; but she was not in the
least excited, because she had loyally expected me to succeed, and would
have thought the sky must be about to fall if I had failed. She was as
placid as she was on other, less important nights, far more placid than
she would have been if she had known that she was guarding not only my
jewellery, but a famous diamond necklace, worth at least five hundred
thousand francs.

There it was, under the lowest tray of my jewel box. I had felt
perfectly safe in leaving it there, for I knew that nothing on
earth--short of a bomb explosion--could tempt the good creature out of
my dressing-room in my absence, and that even if a bomb did explode, she
would try to be blown up with my jewel box clutched in her hands.

Saying nothing to Marianne, who was brushing a little stage dust off my
third act dress, with my back to her I took out tray after tray from the
box (which always came with us to the theatre and went away again in my
carriage) until the electric light over the dressing table set the
diamonds on fire.

Really, I said to myself, they were wonderful stones. I had no idea how
magnificent they were. Not that there were a great many of them. The
necklace was composed of a single row of diamonds, with six flat tassels
depending from it. But the smallest stones at the back, where the clasp
came, were as large as my little finger nail, and the largest were
almost the size of a filbert. All were of perfect colour and fire,
extraordinarily deep and faultlessly shaped, as well as fla