t have had the ring advertised for, counting herself
fortunate to get out of the difficulty so cheaply. However, if her
parents had noted the absence of the ring, she might have said it was
lost and so they advertised, but nothing could have been further from
her wishes, for there would be the great danger that the outcome of
the advertisement would be a complete exposure. She could easily
prevent her parents noticing the ring was gone, at least making
satisfactory explanations for not wearing it. With her wealth, she
could have it duplicated inside of a few days and her friends never
know the original was lost. As this is what the daughter of the house
in all probability would have done, the kleptomaniac could hardly have
been the daughter of the house. He suspected that she was a lady's
maid, who, wearing her mistress's jewelry, had purchased her way out
of one difficulty at the risk of getting into another. The
advertisement would seem to indicate that she was trusted. The
disappearance of the ring was apparently not connected with her. The
matter was very simple. He would hand over the ring and take the eight
hundred dollars and need say nothing that would implicate the young
woman, be she daughter of the house and kleptomaniac, or serving-maid
and common thief. But one thing puzzled him. Why was the reward
greater than the value of the ring?

Eight hundred dollars. The young lady in Englewood was getting nearer.

A bitter east wind was blowing as he walked up to the entrance of the
mansion of Mr. David Crecelius. Behind him the street lay all deserted
and the melancholy voice of the waves filled the air. Nowhere could he
see a light about the house and he was oppressed by a feeling of
undefinable apprehension as he pressed the bell. A considerable
interval elapsing without any one appearing and a second and a third
ringing failing to elicit any response from within the silent pile, he
was about to depart, feeling greatly relieved that it was not
necessary to hold parley with any one within the gloomy and forbidding
edifice, when he heard a sudden light thud at his feet and discovered
that the scarabaeus had dropped through a hole in his trousers' pocket
which had at that moment reached a size large enough to allow it to
escape. After a hurried search, he had possessed himself of the
talisman and was about to depart, when the door swung open before him
and a venerable white-haired man stood in a dim green glow. Bol