d a heavy ottoman across it.

Then I stowed away my emerald in my strong-box. It is built into the wall
of my sitting-room, and masked by the lower part of an old carved oak
bureau. I put away even the rings I wore habitually, keeping out only an
inferior cat's-eye for workaday wear. I had just made all safe when Leta
tapped at the door and came in to wish me good night. She looked flushed
and harassed and ready to cry. "Uncle Paul," she began, "I want you to go
up to town at once, and stay away till I send for you."

"My dear--!" I was too amazed to expostulate.

"We've got a--a pestilence among us," she declared, her foot tapping the
ground angrily, "and the least we can do is to go into quarantine. Oh, I'm
so sorry and so ashamed! The poor bishop! I'll take good care that no one
else shall meet that woman here. You did your best for me, Uncle Paul, and
managed admirably, but it was all no use. I hoped against hope that what
between the dusk of the drawing-room before dinner, and being put at
opposite ends of the table, we might get through without a meeting--"

"But, my dear, explain. Why shouldn't the bishop and Lady Carwitchet meet?
Why is it worse for him than anyone else?"

"Why? I thought everybody had heard of that dreadful wife of his who
nearly broke his heart. If he married her for her money it served him
right, but Lady Landor says she was very handsome and really in love with
him at first. Then Lady Carwitchet got hold of her and led her into all
sorts of mischief. She left her husband--he was only a rector with a
country living in those days--and went to live in town, got into a horrid
fast set, and made herself notorious. You _must_ have heard of her."

"I heard of her sapphires, my dear. But I was in Brazil at the time."

"I wish you had been at home. You might have found her out. She was
furious because her husband refused to let her wear the great Valdez
sapphire. It had been in the Montanaro family for some generations, and
her father settled it first on her and then on her little girl--the bishop
being trustee. He felt obliged to take away the little girl, and send her
off to be brought up by some old aunts in the country, and he locked up
the sapphire. Lady Carwitchet tells as a splendid joke how they got the
copy made in Paris, and it did just as well for the people to stare at. No
wonder the bishop hates the very name of the stone."

"How long will she stay here?" I asked dismally.

"Till