oul, you're not fit for
this work-a-day world! Well, I'm glad, after all, that I shall be with
you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you've
forgotten all this tune has in it. Take it out of your pocket, and let's
open it together."

For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I
knew.

His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him
put the brocade bag. But it did not come out again. It groped; and his
face flushed. "Good heavens, Maxine," he said, "I hope you weren't in
earnest when you told me that bag held something very valuable to us
both, for I've lost it. You know, I've been almost mad. I had my
handkerchief in that pocket. I must have pulled it out, and--"

My knees seemed to give way under me. I half fell onto a sofa.

"Raoul," I said, in a queer stifled voice, "the bag had in it the
Duchess de Montpellier's diamonds."

IVOR DUNDAS' PART

CHAPTER XII

IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK

Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding
myself, long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her
boudoir, while within hearing she did her best to convince her lover
that no stranger had come on her account to the house.

I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her
little place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in
groping about trying to find another door or a window in the dark room,
I ran constant risks of making my presence known by stumbling against
the furniture or knocking down some ornament.

I dared not strike a match because of the sharp, rasping noise it would
make, and I had to be as cautious as if I were treading with bare feet
on glass, although I knew that Maxine was praying for me to be out of
the house, and I was as far from wishing to linger as she was to have me
stay. Only by a miracle did I save myself once or twice from upsetting a
chair or a tall vase of flowers, on my way to a second door which was
locked on the other side. At last, however, I discovered a window, and
congratulated myself that my trouble and Maxine's danger was nearly
over. The room being on the ground floor, though rather high above the
level of the garden, I thought that I could easily let myself down. But
when I had slipped behind the heavy curtains (they were drawn, and felt
smooth, like satin) it was only to come upon a new difficulty.

The window, which opened in the mi