t.
"I should have asked her what she had found, and I should have insisted
upon an answer. I love my friends, but I love the man I am to marry
better."

Here her voice fell, and a most becoming blush suffused her cheek.

"Quite right," I assented. "Now will you answer my former question? What
troubles Miss Glover? Can you tell me?"

"That I cannot. I only know that she has been very silent ever since she
left the house. I thought her beautiful new dress would please her, but
it does not seem to. She has been unhappy and preoccupied all the
evening. She only roused a bit when Mr. Deane showed us the ruby, and
said----Oh, I forgot!"

"What's that? What have you forgot?"

"Your remark of a moment ago. I wouldn't add a word----"

"Pardon me," I smilingly interrupted, looking as fatherly as I could,
"but you _have_ added this word, and now you must tell me what it means.
You were going to speak of the interest she showed in the extraordinary
jewel which Mr. Deane took from his pocket, and----"

"In what he said about the reward he expected. That is, she looked
eagerly at the ruby, and sighed when he acknowledged that he expected it
to bring him five hundred dollars before midnight. But any girl of means
no larger than hers might do that. It would not be fair to lay too much
stress on a sigh."

"Is not Miss Glover wealthy? She wears a very expensive dress, I
observe."

"I know it, and I have wondered a little at it, for her father is not
called very well off. But perhaps she bought it with her own money. I
know she has some; she is an artist in burnt wood."

I let the subject of Miss Glover's dress drop. I had heard enough to
satisfy me that my first theory was correct. This young woman,
beautifully dressed, and with a face from which the rounded lines of
early girlhood had not yet departed, held in her possession, probably at
this very moment, Mrs. Burton's magnificent jewel. But where? On her
person or hidden in some of her belongings? I remembered the cloak in
the closet, and thought it wise to assure myself that the jewel was not
secreted in this garment before I proceeded to extreme measures. Mrs.
Ashley, upon being consulted, agreed with me as to the desirability of
this, and presently I had this poor girl's cloak in my hands.

Did I find the ruby? No; but I found something else tucked away in an
inner pocket which struck me as bearing quite pointedly upon this case.
It was the bill--crumpled, soiled, and