at his interest in it was gone. If
he looked at it he did not see it, for he stood like one stunned all
the time that agitated men and women were running hither and thither in
unavailing efforts to locate the sound yet ringing in their ears. Not
till these various searchers had all come together again, in terror of a
mystery they could not solve, did he let his hand fall and himself awake
to the scene about him.

The words he at once gave utterance to were as remarkable as all the
rest.

"Gentlemen," said he, "you must pardon my agitation. This cry--you need
not seek its source--is one to which I am only too well accustomed. I
have been the happy father of six children. Five I have buried, and,
before the death of each, this same cry has echoed in my ears. I have
but one child left, a daughter,--she is ill at the hotel. Do you wonder
that I shrink from this note of warning, and show myself something less
than a man under its influence? I am going home; but, first, one word
about this stone." Here he lifted it and bestowed, or appeared to bestow
on it, an anxious scrutiny, putting on his glasses and examining it
carefully before passing it back to the inspector.

"I have heard," said he, with a change of tone which must have been
noticeable to every one, "that this stone was a very superior one, and
quite worthy of the fame it bore here in America. But, gentlemen,
you have all been greatly deceived in it; no one more than he who was
willing to commit murder for its possession. The stone, which you have
just been good enough to allow me to inspect, is no diamond, but a
carefully manufactured bit of paste not worth the rich and elaborate
setting which has been given to it. I am sorry to be the one to say
this, but I have made a study of precious stones, and I can not let
this bare-faced imitation pass through my hands without a protest.
Mr. Ramsdell," this to our host, "I beg you will allow me to utter my
excuses, and depart at once. My daughter is worse,--this I know, as
certainly as that I am standing here. The cry you have heard is the one
superstition of our family. Pray God that I find her alive!"

After this, what could be said? Though no one who had heard him, not
even my own romantic self, showed any belief in this interpretation of
the remarkable sound that had just gone thrilling through the house,
yet, in face of his declared acceptance of it as a warning, and the fact
that all efforts had failed to locate t