me la Marquise de Bellairs or Lady Alicia were alike
unthought of, and though three hundred years divide them this ancient
chapel makes them seem, as one might say, contemporaries. Oh, Monsieur
Valmont, what is the use of worrying about emeralds or anything else?
As I look at this beautiful old church, even the house of Hyde Park
appears as naught,' and to my amazement, the eyes that Lady Alicia
turned upon me were wet.

The front door was unlocked, and we walked into the church in silence.
Around the pillars holly and ivy were twined. Great armfuls of the
shrubs had been flung here and there along the walls in heaps, and a
step-ladder stood in one of the aisles, showing that the decoration of
the edifice was not yet complete. A subdued melancholy had settled
down on my erstwhile vivacious companion, the inevitable reaction so
characteristic of the artistic temperament, augmented doubtless by the
solemnity of the place, around whose walls in brass and marble were
sculptured memorials of her ancient race.

'You promised,' I said at last, 'to tell me how you came to suspect--'

'Not here, not here,' she whispered; then rising from the pew in which
she had seated herself, she said:--

'Let us go, I am in no mood for working this morning. I shall finish
the decoration in the afternoon.'

We came out into the cool and brilliant sunlight again, and as we
turned homeward, her spirits immediately began to rise.

'I am anxious to know,' I persisted, 'why you came to suspect a man
whom at first you believed innocent.'

'I am not sure but I believe him innocent now, although I am forced to
the conclusion that he knows where the treasure is.'

'What forces you to that conclusion, my lady?'

'A letter I received from himself, in which he makes a proposal so
extraordinary that I am almost disinclined to accede to it, even
though it leads to the discovery of my necklace. However, I am
determined to leave no means untried if I receive the support of my
friend, Monsieur Valmont.'

'My lady,' said I, with a bow, 'it is but yours to command, mine to
obey. What were the contents of that letter?'

'Read it,' she replied, taking the folded sheet from her pocket, and
handing it to me.

She had been quite right in characterising the note as an
extraordinary epistle. The Honourable John Haddon had the temerity to
propose that she should go through a form of marriage with him in the
old church we had just left. If she did that, he