ce, the first time after their
marriage that she had dined with him in evening dress, and since then
she had never forgotten to follow it.

To-night, however, feeling suddenly conscious of the chain, she was on
the point of looking down to make sure that it was shrouded in her laces.
Something stopped her. With a quick warning thump of the heart she
glanced across at Ruthven Smith.

A few minutes ago he had not been wearing his eyeglasses. Now they were
on, pinching the high-bridged, thin nose. And he was peering through them
at her--peering at her neck, her dress, as if he searched for something.

Ruthven Smith knew about the blue diamond. He knew that she wore it on
a chain, hidden in her dress. The certainty of this shot through brain
and body like forked lightning and seemed to sear her flesh. She was
afraid. She could not tell yet of what she was afraid, but when she could
disentangle her twisted thoughts one from another the reason would be
clear.

Then it was as if her mind separated itself from the rest of her and
began to run back along the path she had travelled with Knight since the
hour of their first meeting. It ran looking on the ground, seeking and
picking up things dropped and almost forgotten.

Knight had not been pleased when the Countess de Santiago talked to him
of their being together on the _Monarchic_. The Countess had seemed
wishful to annoy him in some way. She had taken that way. They had known
each other well and for a long time. They knew a good deal about each
other's affairs. Sometimes one would say that the Countess still liked
to annoy Knight, and he resented that. He had been unwilling to have her
asked to Valley House for Easter, though he knew she longed to come.

And Ruthven Smith! Knight had not wanted him. Could it possibly be on
account of the blue diamond? Had Knight heard what _she_ had heard there
at the dinner-table, and was he anxious about what might happen next?

Hastily she flung a glance toward her husband. He was not looking at her,
but it seemed--perhaps she imagined it--that his face had something of
the same tense, strained expression she had caught on Charrington's.

How odd, if it were true, that both should have that look. One would
almost fancy they shared a secret trouble. But Annesley shook the idea
away, as she would have shaken a hornet trying to sting. How dare she let
such a disloyal fancy even cross the threshold of her mind? A secret
between her hus