appeal. If he had
done this, he would have learned the truth about that envelope. Seeing
her husband at such a moment, Beverley must have betrayed herself, Roger
thought, if there were anything to betray in connection with the
envelope. Had its concealment been important, she would mechanically
have sprung to hide it. Had it been left inadvertently by O'Reilly, for
no concern of hers, Beverley's ignorance of his presence, or her
indifference, would have cleared her in Roger's eyes.

He could not contemplate confessing to Beverley that he had hidden
himself and then taken the envelope. She would probably say: "I never
dreamed that you'd be mean enough to spy upon me! Why didn't you show
yourself, like a brave man, instead of hiding?"

No, he would not tell Beverley that he had been a witness of the scene
between her and the pearl-stringer; nor that he was responsible for the
vanishing of O'Reilly's envelope. Let her think what she liked about its
loss, just as he--Roger--was free to think what he liked about the loss
of the pearls! He would wait for Beverley to tell him that the pearls
were gone. Her carelessness, to say the best of it, her ingratitude and
disloyalty, to say the worst, gave him the right to keep his knowledge
to himself. He would wait and see what Beverley meant to do. Then he
decided to send back the sealed letter to O'Reilly. Ten minutes after
leaving home he had given the envelope to a messenger, with directions
to take it at once to the Dietz.

It was when he had thus disciplined himself, that Roger turned toward
the club. A man who was an old acquaintance of Roger's, and a friend of
O'Reilly's, often dropped in there on a Sunday evening. Possibly he
would come that night. Roger had thought of a question to ask. He saw
that there might be a way to getting even with O'Reilly, a way just as
efficacious, and more open, than the one he had sacrificed.

While he pretended to dine and read an "evening edition," a hateful
little voice in Roger's brain chirped suggestions to him. What if
Beverley had somehow been in O'Reilly's power? What if she had written
him love letters which afterward she wished to get back, and he refused
to surrender? What if she had contrived to steal them, and O'Reilly had
followed, for reprisals? What if, since then, the man had been torturing
her, and Clodagh Riley (a poor relation of Justin O'Reilly's, perhaps)
had been acting as a go-between? What if the girl had pretended i