ely dark in the little room,
and she required to be able to see what she was about, if she were to
pick out the Cadogan collar.

It was risky, a hazardous chance, but she determined to run it. The lamp
that Mrs. Clover had left for her employer was too convenient to be
rejected. Eleanor brought it into the room, carefully shut the door to
prevent the light being visible from the hall, should Mrs. Clover wake
and miss her, placed the lamp on the floor before the safe and lighted
it.

As its soft illumination disclosed the interior of the antiquated
strong-box, the girl uttered a low cry of dismay. To pick out what she
sought from that accumulation (even if it were really there) would be
the work of hours--barring a most happy and unlikely stroke of fortune.

The interior of the safe was divided into some twelve pigeon-holes, all
closely packed with parcels of various sizes--brown-paper parcels,
neatly wrapped and tied with cord, each as neatly labelled in ink with
an indecipherable hieroglyphic: presumably a means of identification to
one intimate with the code.

[Illustration: She turned in time to see the door open and the face and
figure of her father

_Page 274_]

But Eleanor possessed no means of telling one package from another; they
were all so similar to one another in everything save size, in which
they differed only slightly, hardly materially.

None the less, having dared so much, she wasn't of the stuff to give up
the attempt without at least a little effort to find what she sought.
And impulsively she selected the first package that fell under her hand,
with nervous fingers unwrapped it and--found herself admiring an
extremely handsome diamond brooch.

As if it had been a handful of pebbles, she cast it from her to blaze
despised upon the mean plank flooring, and selected another package.

It contained rings--three gold rings set with solitaire diamonds. They
shared the fate of the brooch.

The next packet held a watch. This, too, she dropped contemptuously,
hurrying on.

She had no method, other than to take the uppermost packets from each
pigeonhole, on the theory that the necklace had been one of the last
articles entrusted to the safe. And that there was some sense in this
method was demonstrated when she opened the ninth package--or possibly
the twelfth: she was too busy and excited to keep any sort of count.

This last packet, however, revealed the Cadogan collar.

With