down the
box upon the table and speaking jovially and boisterously, though my
heart was heavy within me. "I have brought you something which is
worth all the news in the world. I have brought you a fortune."

She glanced at iron box. "Is that the treasure, then?" she asked,
coolly enough.

"Yes, this is the great Agra treasure. Half of it is yours and half is
Thaddeus Sholto's. You will have a couple of hundred thousand each.
Think of that! An annuity of ten thousand pounds. There will be few
richer young ladies in England. Is it not glorious?"

I think that I must have been rather overacting my delight, and that
she detected a hollow ring in my congratulations, for I saw her
eyebrows rise a little, and she glanced at me curiously.

"If I have it," said she, "I owe it to you."

"No, no," I answered, "not to me, but to my friend Sherlock Holmes.
With all the will in the world, I could never have followed up a clue
which has taxed even his analytical genius. As it was, we very nearly
lost it at the last moment."

"Pray sit down and tell me all about it, Dr. Watson," said she.

I narrated briefly what had occurred since I had seen her
last,--Holmes's new method of search, the discovery of the Aurora, the
appearance of Athelney Jones, our expedition in the evening, and the
wild chase down the Thames. She listened with parted lips and shining
eyes to my recital of our adventures. When I spoke of the dart which
had so narrowly missed us, she turned so white that I feared that she
was about to faint.

"It is nothing," she said, as I hastened to pour her out some water.
"I am all right again. It was a shock to me to hear that I had placed
my friends in such horrible peril."

"That is all over," I answered. "It was nothing. I will tell you no
more gloomy details. Let us turn to something brighter. There is the
treasure. What could be brighter than that? I got leave to bring it
with me, thinking that it would interest you to be the first to see it."

"It would be of the greatest interest to me," she said. There was no
eagerness in her voice, however. It had struck her, doubtless, that it
might seem ungracious upon her part to be indifferent to a prize which
had cost so much to win.

"What a pretty box!" she said, stooping over it. "This is Indian work,
I suppose?"

"Yes; it is Benares metal-work."

"And so heavy!" she exclaimed, trying to raise it. "The box alone must
be of some value. Where