perfect artists in frauds.
Don't you remember their stand at the first Paris Exhibition? They had
imitation there of every celebrated stone; but I never expected anything
made by man could delude Mr. Acton, never!" And she went off into another
mocking cackle, and all the idiots round her haw-hawed knowingly, as if
they had seen the joke all along. I was too bewildered to reply, which was
on the whole lucky. "I suppose I mustn't tell why I came to give quite a
big sum in francs for this?" she went on, tapping her closed lips with her
closed fan, and cocking her eye at us all like a parrot wanting to be
coaxed to talk. "It's a queer story."

I didn't want to hear her anecdote, especially as I saw she wanted to tell
it. What I _did_ want was to see that pendant again. She had thrust it
back among her laces, only the loop which held it to the velvet being
visible. It was set with three small sapphires, and even from a distance I
clearly made them out to be imitations, and poor ones. I felt a queer
thrill of self-mistrust. Was the large stone no better? Could I, even for
an instant, have been dazzled by a sham, and a sham of that quality? The
events of the evening had flurried and confused me. I wished to think them
over in quiet. I would go to bed.

My rooms at the Manor are the best in the house. Leta will have it so. I
must explain their position for a reason to be understood later. My
bedroom is in the southeast angle of the house; it opens on one side into
a sitting-room in the east corridor, the rest of which is taken up by the
suite of rooms occupied by Tom and Leta; and on the other side into my
bathroom, the first room in the south corridor, where the principal guest
chambers are, to one of which it was originally the dressing-room. Passing
this room I noticed a couple of housemaids preparing it for the night, and
discovered with a shiver that Lady Carwitchet was to be my next-door
neighbor. It gave me a turn.

The bishop's strange warning must have unnerved me. I was perfectly safe
from her ladyship. The disused door into her room was locked, and the key
safe on the housekeeper's bunch. It was also undiscoverable on her side,
the recess in which it stood being completely filled by a large wardrobe.
On my side hung a thick sound-proof _portiere_. Nevertheless, I resolved
not to use that room while she inhabited the next one. I removed my
possessions, fastened the door of communication with my bedroom, and
dragge