y anything she need combat. But her own name arrested
her and sent the blood up into her face.

"Esther," said he, "you're a prisoner to it because you've fallen in
love with its glitter, and you think if you wore it you'd be lovelier.
So it's made you a prisoner to the female instinct for adornment."

Alston was watching him sharply now. He was wondering whether Jeff was
going to accuse her of appropriating it in the beginning.

"Choate is a prisoner," said Jeff earnestly and with such simplicity
that even Choate, with his fastidious hatred of familiarity, could not
resent it. "He's a prisoner to your charm. But here's where the necklace
comes in again. If he could find out you'd done unworthy things to get
it your charm would be broken and he'd be free."

This was so true that Choate could only stare at him and wish he would
either give over or brutally tell him whether he was to be free.

"Madame Beattie uses the necklace as a means of livelihood," said Jeff.
He was growing quite happy in the way his mind was leading him, because
it did seem to be getting him somewhere, where all the links would hold.
"Because she can get more out of it, in some mysterious way I haven't
fathomed, than by selling it. And so she's prisoner to it, too."

"I shall be able to tell what the reason is," said Choate, "before long,
I fancy. I've sent for the history of the Beattie necklace. I know a man
in Paris who is getting it for me."

"Good!" said Jeff. "Now I propose we all escape from the necklace. We're
prisoners, and let's be free."

"How are you a prisoner?" Alston asked him.

Jeff smiled at him.

"Why," said he, "if, as I told you, I took the necklace from this house,
I'm a criminal, and the necklace has laid me by the heels. Who's got it
now?"

This he asked of Esther and she returned bitterly:

"Aunt Patricia's got it. She walked out of the room with it, shaking it
in the sun."

"Good!" said Jeff again. "Let her have it. Let her shake it in the sun.
But we three can escape. Have we escaped? Choate, have you?"

He looked at Choate so seriously that Choate had to take it with an
equal gravity. He knew how ridiculous the situation could be made by a
word or two. But Jeff was making it entirely sane and even epic.

"We know perfectly well," said Jeff, "that the law wouldn't have much to
do if all offenders and all witnesses told the truth. They don't,
because they're prisoners--prisoners to fear and prisoners to
sel