e."

Then his eyes caught the necklace on the table, and advancing with two
steps he stooped over it.

For a moment everything else seemed removed, from about the man. His
angular body, in its unfamiliar dress, was doubled like a finger; his
great head with its wide Mongolian face was close down over the buhl top
of the table and his finger moved the heap of rubies.

The girl had a sudden inspiration.

"Lord Eckhart got these jewels from you?"

The man paused, he seemed to be moving the girl's words backward through
the intervening languages.

Then he replied.

"Yes," he said, "from us."

The girl's inspiration was now illumined by a further light.

"And you have not been paid for them?"

The man stood up now. And again this involved process of moving the
words back through various translations was visible--and the answer up.

"Yes--" he said, "we have been paid."

Then he added, in explanation of his act.

"These rubies have no equal in the world--and the gold-work attaching
them together is extremely old. I am always curious to admire it."

He looked down at the girl, at the necklace, at the space about them, as
though he were deeply, profoundly puzzled.

"We had a fear," he said, "--it was wrong!"

Then he put his hand swiftly into the bosom pocket of his evening coat,
took out a thin packet wrapped in a piece of vellum and handed it to the
girl.

"It became necessary to treat with the English Government about the
removal of records from Lhassa and I was sent--I was directed to get
this packet to you from London. To-night, at dinner with Sir Henry
Marquis in St. James's Square, I learned that you were here. I had then
only this hour to come, as my boat leaves in the morning." He spoke with
the extreme care of one putting together a delicate mosaic.

The girl stood staring at the thin packet. A single thought alone
consumed her.

"It is a message from--my--father."

She spoke almost in a whisper.

The big Oriental replied immediately.

"No," he said, "your father is beyond sight and hearing."

The girl had no hope; only the will to hope. The reply was confirmation
of what she already knew. She removed the thin vellum wrapper from the
packet. Within she found a drawing on a plate of ivory. It represented
a shaft of some white stone standing on the slight elevation of what
seemed to be a barren plateau. And below on the plate, in fine English
characters like an engraving, was the legend, "E