something should
come out you wouldn't want to be mixed up in it."

"Then why not give it back to the Chinaman?" she tried him.

"Oh, that's ridiculous." He was in a passion. His darkening eyes, his
swelling nostrils, his aspect so out of proportion to her mild and
almost playful suggestion, frightened her. He saw it and instantly his
mood dropped to mere irritation. "Oh, Flora, don't make a scene about
it. This thing has been on my mind for days--the thought that you had
the ring. I was afraid I had no business to let you have it in the first
place, and what you've told me to-night has clean knocked me out. I
don't know what I'm saying. Come, let me have it; and if there's
anything queer about the business, at least we'll get it cleared up."

But, smiling, she retreated before him.

"Why, Flora," he argued, half laughing, but still with that dry end of
irritation in his voice, "what on earth do you want to keep the thing
for?"

By this time she backed against the window, and faced him. "Why, it's my
engagement ring."

He looked at her. She couldn't tell whether he was readiest to laugh or
rage.

"You gave it to me for that," she pleaded. "Why shouldn't I keep it,
until you give me a real reason for giving it up? If you really know
anything, why don't you tell me?" She was sure she had him there; but he
burst out at last:

"Well, for a fact, I know it is stolen!" He leaned toward her; and his
arms, still flung out with the hands open as argument had left them,
seemed to her frightened eyes all ready for her, ready with his last
argument, his strength.

Once before she had feared herself face to face with the same threat in
the eyes and body of another man, but here, her only fear was lest Harry
should get the sapphire away from her. His doing so would dash down no
ideal of him. It was mere physical terror that made her tremble and
raise her hand to her breast. Instantly she saw how she had betrayed the
sapphire again. He had taken hold of her wrist, and, twist as she might,
he held it, horribly gentle.

She pressed back against the glass until she felt it hard behind her.

"Harry," she whispered, "if you care anything, if you ever want me for
yours, you'll take your hands away." She meant it; she was sincere in
that moment, for all she shrank from him. Her body and mind would not
have been too great a price to give him for the sapphire.

But these he seemed to set aside as trivial. These he expected as a