reasury laid bare.

For an instant, in the manner of an apprehensive child who postpones as
long as possible some unwelcome confirmation, Raikes closed his eyes,
and when he opened them again they rested, with unerring precision, upon
a bag somewhat detached from the others, which protruded at its sides
with those frightful points and angles with which he had become so
unhappily familiar of late.

With a smothered cry he sprang forward, gripped the bag in a trembling,
faltering clutch, and dropped it with a groan to the floor, where it
fell with a heart-breaking, distracting lightness, which, nevertheless,
smote like a mighty weight upon his bursting heart.

"My God!" he cried, "this is incredible!" and the miserable creature
stood for a moment with an appalling vacancy shadowing in his
countenance, which was illumed for one fitful moment with a ray of hope
as he inserted his hand in his waistcoat pocket to assure himself that
the diamond which he had placed in that receptacle the night before at
least was safe.

The diamond--ah, yes!

There was still some consolation in that.

Its value still maintained a close proportion to his loss. If there was
no gain there was, at least, a sort of evil restitution.

But his exploring fingers found only an empty pocket.

In a palsy of fear, and with the demeanor of one who feels the first
twinge of a mortal affliction and awaits in fearful silence the grewsome
confirmation of another, he stood without sound or motion, his set,
staring eyes directed with unseeing intensity upon the vacant air.

The next instant, with feverish animation and impotent apprehension,
five writhing fingers leaped from their futile search, like scotched
reptiles, into the opposite pocket and withdrew the two useless keys
with which he fastened his abortive latch on the door.

And then, with a frightful glitter in his eyes, an ugly ooze about his
bloodless lips, a flickering effort of his shriveled fingers to adjust
themselves to some ribald rhythm, Raikes began to sing, with the dry
rasp and ancient husk of a galvanized sphinx:

"And her name it was Dinah,
Scarce sixteen years old;
She'd a very large fortune
In greenbacks and gold.
Sing turi-li-luri----

Ha, ha! ha, ha!" and supporting himself along the wall he made his way
slowly to the threshold, unfastened the locks, removed the heavy bar,
opened the door, and cried out in a voice that was not human, that
shudder