band and his servant--a secret concerning the blue
diamond, which stabbed them both with the same prick of anxiety at the
mention of the jewel!

No sooner was the venomous thing dislodged than it crept back and settled
close over her heart. For Knight's eyes turned to her, and in them was
the look of a drowning man.

Just for the fraction of a second she saw it. Then the curtain was drawn
over his real self that had come to the window and signalled for help. He
smiled a friendly smile, and took up the conversation with his right-hand
neighbour. But he had hidden his soul too late. The message could not be
taken back, and Annesley was sure that he, too, had heard the story
Ruthven Smith had told so loudly to Lady Cartwright.

The fact that he had lost his unruffled, nonchalant coolness even for a
single instant warned Annesley that Knight must be desperately troubled.

"He bought the diamond for me, knowing what it was," she told herself,
"and knowing that it must have been stolen. Of course that's why he made
me wear it where nobody could see. But who else knew besides the man who
sold it to Knight? _Somebody_ must have known, and told Mr. Ruthven
Smith. Perhaps the thief himself, hoping to be spared, and to get money
from both sides. That is why Mr. Ruthven Smith accepted the invitation
here, which I was so sure he would refuse. He has come because he thinks
the Malindore diamond is in this house. That must be it! But how can he
have found out that I am wearing it?"

As she thought these things, asking herself questions, sometimes
answering them, sometimes unable to answer, she managed to keep up some
desultory talk first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. It
seemed to take all her strength to do this, and made her feel weak and
broken, not excited and vital, as she had felt on the wonderful night at
the Savoy when "Nelson Smith" had praised her pluck and presence of mind
in saving him from a danger which had never been explained.

How she wished with all her anxious, troubled heart that she knew how to
save him to-night!

It had been very wrong to buy a stolen diamond, but he had done it from
no mercenary motives, for he had given it to her. She supposed that he
had loved the beautiful thing, and felt when it was offered to him that
he could not bear to let it go.... Perhaps the Countess de Santiago had
stolen it on the _Monarchic_! That might be a cruel thought, but Annesley
could not help having