has told the police, he
was looking in at the sitting-room window when he saw Mary Burton faint.
No one was then in the room but the girl and her father; and as the
latter bent over her, Fenton saw the door open and the nurse steal into
the room, the brass candlestick in her hand. The jewels were upon the
table where the Bounder had placed them at the moment his daughter fell.
The nurse snatched them up, and as she did so the man turned his head
and saw her. He leaped toward her, and she struck him to the floor.
Without a moment's hesitation she lifted the window, and dropped the
candlestick within two feet of where Fenton was crouched. Then she left
the room.

"The sounds made by these happenings are probably what young Burton was
listening to at the head of the stairs when the colored maid saw him.
And my version of what he did after he descended the stairs you have
already heard. The brother thought the sister was the criminal, and when
the sister came out of her swoon--I heard her admit as much to her
brother this morning when he was released from prison--her mind was
burdened with the belief that _he_ was guilty. And so both were silent
for each other's sake."

"But Mary's prowling about the house with the candle as I saw her that
night?" said Scanlon. "What do you make of that?"

"Mary Burton has a good mind--though she lacks self-assertion. When the
jewels were not found upon her father's body, or in the room where he
was killed, she realized they had been stolen. But by whom? She knew her
brother too well to think he was the thief, and I think from that moment
she began to suspect the nurse. Once, as a report of one of my men
states, as the nurse left the house secretly and with a veil over her
face, Mary was seen at a window, the curtain partly drawn aside, looking
after her. I think her going about through the rooms with the candle was
an effort to locate the possible hiding place of the diamonds."

Nora gave a deep sigh.

"Poor thing! And to think how very brave she was."

"Well," and Ashton-Kirk showed unmistakable signs of going, "I suppose
their troubles from that source, at least, are over."

Nora arose and held out her hand.

"That it is," she said, "is due to you. And I thank you for the peace
you have brought to us all."

Ashton-Kirk released the hand after a moment.

"It was one of those things which would probably have unraveled itself,"
said he. "However," with a nod and a smile which s