me du Barri, and another
which Queen Elizabeth gave to one of her ladies-in-waiting. An ancestor
of ours was a son of hers. I think the time has arrived when the jewels
should, so to speak, be resurrected; that they should pass into your
possession."

Miriam's heart beat fast; but the flush of gratification did not rise to
her face, for she was thinking of the base, the nefarious uses to which
her husband would put these historic jewels.

"Indeed, they almost belong to you by right," said the Marquess. "They
have always gone with the title."

His voice grew gradually slower, and presently he stopped and looked
straight before him, as if he had forgotten her presence. Indeed, he had
done so; for as he spoke of the title, there rose suddenly, like a
cinematograph film thrown on the screen, the bent figure, grey face and
piercing eyes of the real owner of the title. Not for the first time,
he, the false Marquess, was giving away that which belonged to the
shabbily-dressed old man who had refused to accept the position which
was his by right of inheritance. The pause was a momentary one only, and
the Marquess went on,

"I am a widower; fortunately, Percy is married, and the family jewels
really belong to you. You shall have them."

Miriam moistened her lips; her heart was beating thickly. As a woman,
she desired the jewels; as a wife, she must obey Heyton.

"Oh, how good of you!" she said, trying to keep her voice steady.
"Indeed, it is more than kind of you, Lord Sutcombe. But--but I don't
think I ought to accept them--now. They must be of very great value----"

"They are," he interjected, not complacently but with a sigh; for he
recalled them as they shone on the neck and arms of his dead wife.

"And I feel as if they would be a great responsibility," Miriam
continued. "Percy thinks of--of going abroad, of travelling for a time.
Perhaps, when we come back and have settled down, you--you will be so
good, so kind as to give them to me. I can't thank you enough."

Her voice broke; for weak and foolish as she was, she could not but
think of the still weaker and more vicious man who had planned so base a
use for the Sutcombe diamonds.

"Very well, my dear," he said, in a kindly voice. "We will leave them to
their repose in the safe upstairs. I brought them down from the bank,
intending to give them to you."

"Upstairs?" she said, in something like a whisper, a frightened whisper.

"Why, yes," he said, simply. "Th