dunes the sea flashed a burning blue;
storm-twisted cedars led a rutted road down to it; in the salt air the
piny odor was sharp with sunlight. Katherine had dropped beneath one of
the dwarfed trees, and leaning back, smiled dimly up at him with a
stricken face which North did not understand.

"You are ill," he said, anxiously. "You look ill. Please let me take
care of you. There is a house back there--let me--" but she interrupted:

"I'm not ill, and I won't be fussed over. I'm not exactly right, but I
will be in a few minutes. The best thing for me is just to rest here and
have you talk to me. Tell me that story you are so slow about."

He took her at her word. Lying at full length at her feet--his head
propped on a hillock so that he might look into her face, one of his
hands against the hem of her white dress,--the shadows of the cedars
swept back and forth across him, the south sea glittered beyond the
sand-dunes, and he told the story.

"Mr. Litterny was in his office in the early afternoon of February 18,"
he began, "when a man called him up on the telephone. Mr. Litterny did
not recognize the voice, but the man stated at once that he was Burr
Claflin, whose name you may know. He is a rich broker, and a personal
friend of both the Litternys. Voice is so uncertain a quantity over a
telephone that it did not occur to Mr. Litterny to be suspicious on that
point, and the conversation was absolutely in character otherwise. The
talker used expressions and a manner of saying things which the jeweller
knew to be characteristic of Claflin.

"He told Mr. Litterny that he had just made a lucky hit in stocks, and
'turned over a bunch of money,' as he put it, and that he wanted to make
his wife a present. 'Now--this afternoon--this minute,' he said, which
was just like Burr Claflin, who is an impetuous old chap. 'I want to
give her a diamond brooch, and I want her to wear it out to dinner
to-night,' he said. 'Can't you send two or three corkers up to the house
for me?' That surprised Mr. Litterny and he hesitated, but finally said
that he would do it. It was against the rules of the house, but as it
was for Mr. Claflin he would do it. They had a little talk about the
details, and Claflin arranged to call up his wife and tell her that the
jewels would be there at four-thirty, so that she could look out for
them personally. All that was the Litterny end of the affair. Simple
enough, wasn't it?"

Katherine's eyes were so