gine
why the woman did not come to look after her, and if the maid did not
turn up at the next stop, would I be so very kind as to get out and
bring her whatever it was she pretended she wanted.

"I had taken my dressing-case from the rack to get out a novel, and had
left it on the seat opposite to mine, and at the end of the compartment
farthest from her. And once when I came back from buying her a cup of
chocolate, or from some other fool errand, I found her standing at my
end of the compartment with both hands on the dressing-bag. She looked
at me without so much as winking an eye, and shoved the case carefully
into a corner. 'Your bag slipped off on the floor,' she said. 'If you've
got any bottles in it, you had better look and see that they're not
broken.'

"And I give you my word, I was such an ass that I did open the case and
looked all through it. She must have thought I _was_ a Juggins. I get
hot all over whenever I remember it. But in spite of my dulness, and her
cleverness, she couldn't gain anything by sending me away, because what
she wanted was in the hand bag and every time she sent me away the hand
bag went with me.

"After the incident of the dressing-case her manner changed. Either in
my absence she had had time to look through it, or, when I was examining
it for broken bottles, she had seen everything it held.

"From that moment she must have been certain that the cigar-case, in
which she knew I carried the diamonds, was in the bag that was fastened
to my body, and from that time on she probably was plotting how to get
it from me. Her anxiety became most apparent. She dropped the great lady
manner, and her charming condescension went with it. She ceased talking,
and, when I spoke, answered me irritably, or at random. No doubt her
mind was entirely occupied with her plan. The end of our journey was
drawing rapidly nearer, and her time for action was being cut down with
the speed of the express train. Even I, unsuspicious as I was, noticed
that something was very wrong with her. I really believe that before we
reached Marseilles if I had not, through my own stupidity, given her the
chance she wanted, she might have stuck a knife in me and rolled me out
on the rails. But as it was, I only thought that the long journey had
tired her. I suggested that it was a very trying trip, and asked her if
she would allow me to offer her some of my cognac.

"She thanked me and said, 'No,' and then suddenly her ey