me."

When the door had shut behind her Angel, the girl felt she would be
thankful for the five minutes' respite. She lay flat and straight as a
figure on a marble tomb, yet she could not rest for thinking of
O'Reilly. His eyes seemed to be looking into hers. By shutting them, she
could not shut him out. When she thought that the five minutes must have
passed, she slid wearily off the bed.

"I must go to Angel," she said half aloud. But she had not got to her
feet when, without knocking, Beverley flung the door open.

Instantly Clo guessed that some new and worse misfortune had happened.

"This time it's the end. I give up!" Beverley panted. "The envelope has
gone with the pearls. I hadn't even opened it. I don't know what was
inside."

"Gone! The envelope gone!" gasped the girl. "Gone--from--where?"

"From the table in the boudoir," Beverley answered. "I laid it there
when Miss Blackburne told me about the pearls. It was there when I came
to you. Miss Blackburne hasn't left the room. She didn't even see the
envelope. I've searched everywhere for it--but it's gone."

XVIII

DEFEAT

All Clo's efforts and schemings wasted! She had tricked, stolen, risked
her life, in vain. The envelope was gone.

"You can't have looked everywhere," she insisted. "The thing must have
got tucked out of sight--unless Miss Blackburne ... but no, she's as
good as gold!"

"I'm sure you're right about her. She is good," said Beverley.
"But ... she says nobody came into the room while she was
there.... I asked her. Otherwise I might have thought that
Rog----" The sentence broke. "I wanted to see you alone," Angel began
again, "so I came back. You've been so wonderful to-day, you've made
me depend upon you. If there were anything to do, you'd be the one
to do it. But there's nothing ... is there? I can't see any light,
can you?"

"Let me help you to look for the envelope," said Clo.

"Come, then," said the other, in a toneless voice, unlike her own.
Together they went to Beverley's boudoir, where there was a little
interlude of greetings between Clo and Miss Blackburne. Then, Clo was
beginning her search for the lost envelope when Roger Sands slowly
passed the half-open door. Beverley had left it ajar, not because she
wished to call him (that desire had fled with the news about the
pearls), but in order to see that he went out. She stood with her back
to the door at the moment, but on the wall directly opposite hung a lon