you?"

"Not immediately. She let them lie in her lap for a while."

"While you talked?"

Mr. Durand bowed.

"And looked at the diamond?"

Mr. Durand bowed for the second time.

"Had you ever seen so fine a diamond before?"

"No."

"Yet you deal in precious stones?"

"That is my business."

"And are regarded as a judge of them?"

"I have that reputation."

"Mr. Durand, would you know this diamond if you saw it?"

"I certainly should."

"The setting was an uncommon one, I hear."

"Quite an unusual one."

The inspector opened his hand.

"Is this the article?"

"Good God! Where--"

"Don't you know?"

"I do not."

The inspector eyed him gravely.

"Then I have a bit of news for you. It was hidden in the gloves you took
from Mrs. Fairbrother. Miss Van Arsdale was present at their unrolling."

Do we live, move, breathe at certain moments? It hardly seems so. I know
that I was conscious of but one sense, that of seeing; and of but one
faculty, that of judgment. Would he flinch, break down, betray guilt, or
simply show astonishment? I chose to believe it was the latter feeling
only which informed his slowly whitening and disturbed features.
Certainly it was all his words expressed, as his glances flew from the
stone to the gloves, and back again to the inspector's face.

"I can not believe it. I can not believe it." And his hand flew wildly
to his forehead.

"Yet it is the truth, Mr. Durand, and one you have now to face. How will
you do this? By any further explanations, or by what you may consider a
discreet silence?"

"I have nothing to explain,--the facts are as I have stated."

The inspector regarded him with an earnestness which made my heart sink.

"You can fix the time of this visit, I hope; tell us, I mean, just when
you left the alcove. You must have seen some one who can speak for you."

"I fear not."

Why did he look so disturbed and uncertain?

"There were but few persons in the hall just then," he went on to
explain. "No one was sitting on the yellow divan."

"You know where you went, though? Whom you saw and what you did before
the alarm spread?"

"Inspector, I am quite confused. I did go somewhere; I did not remain in
that part of the hall. But I can tell you nothing definite, save that
I walked about, mostly among strangers, till the cry rose which sent us
all in one direction and me to the side of my fainting sweetheart."

"Can you pick out any stranger you talked t