knew that those sacred manuscripts written by
the dear, dead hand had not been destroyed by printers, every fibre of
her passionate self craved their possession. We argued futilely, as
people must, who haven't the ghost of a case.

"But why has Jaffery lied?"

"The manuscript of 'The Diamond Gate,'" I declared, again perjuring
myself, "has nothing whatever to do with Jaffery and me. As I've told
you it was not among Adrian's papers which we went through together.
We're narrowed down to 'The Greater Glory.' Possibly," said I, with a
despairing flash, "Jaffery had to pull it about so much and deface it
with his own great scrawl, that he thought it might pain you to see it,
and so he told you that it had disappeared at the printer's. Now that I
remember, he did say something of the kind."

"Yes, he did," said Barbara.

Doria brushed away the hypothesis. "You poor things! You're merely
saying that to shield him. A blind imbecile could see through you"--I
have already apologised to you for our being the unconvincing liars that
we were--"you know nothing more about it than I do. You ought to, as
I've already said. But you don't. In fact, you know considerably less.
Shall I tell you where the manuscripts are at the present moment?"

"No, my dear," said Barbara, in the plaintive voice of one who has come
to the end of a profitless talk; for you cannot imagine how utterly
wearied we were with the whole of the miserable business. "Let us wait
till Jaffery comes home. It won't be so very long."

"Yes, Doria," said I, soothingly. "Barbara's right. You can't condemn a
man without a hearing?"

Doria laughed scornfully. "Can't I? I'm a woman, my dear friend. And
when a woman condemns a man unheard she's much more merciful than when
she condemns him after listening to his pleadings. Then she gets really
angry, and perhaps does the man injustice."

I gasped at the monstrous proposition; but Barbara did not seem to
detect anything particularly wrong about it.

"At any rate," said I, "whether you condemn him or not, we can't do
anything until he comes home. So we had better leave it at that."

"Very well," said Doria. "Let us leave it for the present. I don't want
to be more of a worry to you dear people than I can help. But that's
where Adrian's manuscripts are, both of them"--and she pointed to the
key of Jaffery's flat hanging with its staring label against my library
wall.

Of course it was rather mean to throw the entire