he house."

"Wasn't it amazing!" cried Jessie, turning to Miss Duncan. "A thief
walking through the house in the dead of night, while we were all
sleeping! I am sure I should have been frightened into hysterics had I
known it."

A cold, calm look from Mrs. Varrick's steel-gray eyes seemed to arrest
the words on the girl's lips, and that strange, uncanny gaze sent a
thrill creeping down to the very depths of Jessie Bain's soul.

All in a flash, as Miss Duncan listened, she realized what was coming.

"Let no one interrupt me unless I invite them to speak," said Mrs.
Varrick, continuing: "I will go on to say that the butler informs me
that he found no door or window open in any part of the house, when he
opened up the place this morning.

"Have you missed anything, Miss Duncan?"

"No," said Gerelda, quietly.

"And you, Miss Bain?"

"No. I have nothing that any thief would care to take," returned the
girl; "only this gold chain and this battered old locket which contains
my dead mother's picture, and I always wear this about my neck day and
night."

Mrs. Varrick asked the same question of every one present--"if they had
lost anything during the night"--and each one answered in a positive
negative.

"Then it seems that the thief was content with taking my diamond
bracelet," she said, sharply.

Suddenly the housekeeper, who had been in Mrs. Varrick's service since
she had come there a bride, spoke out:

"I am sure nobody would object, ma'am, if the trunks and boxes of every
one in the house were to be examined."

Mrs. Varrick turned to the housekeeper.

"I should not like to say that I suspect any one," she answered. "I have
sent for one of the most experienced detectives in the city, and am
expecting him to arrive at any moment. In the meantime, I desire that
you will all remain in this room."

Miss Duncan had maintained throughout an attitude of polite
indifference. Now she realized what that visit to Jessie Bain's room, in
the dead of the night, meant.

Then there commenced the greatest battle between Good and Evil that ever
was fought in a human heart. Should she save her rival, the girl whom
Hubert Varrick loved, or by her silence doom her to life-long misery?
While she was battling, Jessie smiled, murmuring in a low voice: "Isn't
it too bad, Miss Duncan, that Hubert--Mr. Varrick, I mean--should be
away from home just at this critical time?"

Miss Duncan's face hardened, and all the kindliness in h