ted, when,
after a last quiet look and some listening at the foot of the stairs,
Mr. Quimby beckoned him into the office and, telling him to lock the
door behind him, stepped around the bar to summon his wife. Jake never
knew how it happened. He flung the door to and locked it, as he thought,
but he must have turned the key too quickly, for the bolt of the lock
did not enter the jamb, as they afterward found. Meanwhile they felt
perfectly secure. The jewels were brought out of Mrs. Quimby's bedroom
and laid on the desk. The securities were soon laid beside them. They
had been concealed behind a movable brick at the side of the fireplace.
Then the discussion began, involving more or less heat and excitement.

How long this lasted no one ever knew. At half-past eleven no change of
attitude had taken place either in Quimby or his wife. At twelve the
only difference marked by Jake was the removal of the securities to
Quimby's breast pocket, and of the diamond-studded chain to Mrs.
Quimby's neck. The former were too large for the pocket, the latter too
brilliant for the dark calico background they blazed against. Jake, who
was no fool, noted both facts, but had no words for the situation. He
was absorbed, and he saw that Quimby was absorbed, in watching her
broad hand creeping over those diamonds and huddling them up in a
burning heap against her heart. There was fear in the action, fierce and
overmastering fear, and so there was in her eyes which, fixed and
glassy, stared over their shoulders at the wall behind, as though
something had reached out from that wall and struck at the very root of
her being. What did it mean? There was nothing in the room to affright
her. Had she gone daft? Or----

Suddenly they both felt the blood congeal in their own veins; each
turned to each a horrified face, then slowly and as if drawn by a power
supernatural and quite outside of their own will, their two heads turned
in the direction she was looking, and they beheld standing in their
midst a spectre--no, it was the figure of a living, breathing woman,
with eyes fastened on those jewels,--those well-known, much-advertised
jewels! So much they saw in that instant flash, then nothing! For
Quimby, in a frenzy of unreasoning fear, had taken the chair from under
him and had swung it at the figure. A lamp had stood on the bar top. It
was caught by the backward swing of the chair, overturned and quenched.
The splintering of glass mingled its smal