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et, and had devoured another couple, lavishly buttered, accompanied by a fairly liberal cut of beefsteak. Consequently, when Raikes conveyed his customary intimation that she was at liberty to begin, the spinster obediently proceeded to add a moderate breakfast to the one she had already enjoyed. Trembling lest her brother would remark the developing suggestions of well-being which had resulted from her recent regimen, she welcomed with genuine relief the advent of the Sepoy, to whom Raikes transferred his speculative glance. "Well!" exclaimed the Sepoy, "you have had quite a siege, I hear." "I have," replied Raikes shortly; then added with a sort of grim humor: "My physician has recommended a little diversion, and I have just thought of a simple way of following his advice." "What is that?" asked the Sepoy. "I would like to present myself at the usual hour and hear the conclusion of the story, for I judge, from the predicament of Prince Otondo, that the end is not far off." "Ah, you remember?" exclaimed the Sepoy. "Decidedly!" replied Raikes. "Very well, then," returned the other. "Come at ten and I will gather the tangled threads together." During the balance of that day Raikes devoted his powers of concentration to the consummation of the treatment to which he had subjected himself, and this, together with the prospect of the recovery of his property, resulted in a condition which made the visits of the astonished physician no longer necessary. With an eagerness intensified to a childish impatience, almost, by the vague suggestions of Gratz that the story would be personally interesting, and exhausting his mind with futile speculations as to the manner of its application to the unnatural conditions which distressed him so, Raikes at last concluded his contemplation of the clock, and promptly upon the stroke of ten, hastened from his room and hurried to the apartment occupied by the Sepoy. Seating himself in the chair indicated by his host, he shortly found that he was unable to avoid recalling his recent guilty appropriation of the diamond, and a degree of confusion, which he could not entirely disguise, manifested itself in his difficulty of adjusting his eyes to the inscrutable gaze of the Sepoy. On this occasion the narrator, as hitherto, did not provide his auditor with a brilliant to look upon during the progress of the story--an omission that was radiantly repaired by the two lamben
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