.

Poor Carr! I felt for him. He took the loss of his stones so to heart;
and I am sure it was only natural. I parted from him at my own door, and
was glad on going in to find Jane had stayed up for me. I soon figured
in her eyes as the hero of a thrilling adventure, while her clever hands
applied sticking-plaster _ad libitum_. We were both so full of the
events of the evening, and the letter which I was to write to the
_Times_ about it the next day, that it never entered the heads of either
of us, on retiring to bed, to remove Sir John's jewels from the
tea-caddy into which they had been temporarily popped in the afternoon.

CHAPTER IV.

I really think adventures, like misfortunes, never come single. Would
you believe it? Our house was broken into that very night. Nothing
serious came of it, wonderful to relate, owing to Jane's extraordinary
presence of mind. She had been unable to sleep after my thrilling
account of the cab accident, and had consoled herself by reading
Baxter's "Saint's Rest" by her night-light, for the canary became
restless and liable to sudden bursts of song if a candle were lighted.
While so engaged she became aware of a subdued grating sound, which had
continued for some time before she began to speculate upon it. While she
was speculating it ceased, and after a short interval she distinctly
heard a stealthy step upon the stair, and the handle of the passage door
before-mentioned was gently, very gently turned.

Jane has some of that quickness of perception which has been of such use
to myself through life. In a moment she had grasped the situation. Some
one was in the house. In another moment she was hanging out of her
bedroom window, springing the policeman's rattle which she had had by
her for years with a view to an emergency of this kind, and at the same
time--for she was a capable woman--blowing a piercing strain on a
cabman's whistle.

To make a long story short, her extraordinary presence of mind was the
saving of us. With her own eyes she saw two dark figures fly up our area
steps and disappear round the corner, and when a policeman appeared on
the scene half an hour later, he confirmed the fact that the house had
been broken into, by showing us how an entrance had been effected
through the kitchen window.

There was of course no more sleep for us that night, and the remainder
of it was passed by Jane in examining the house from top to bottom every
half hour or so, owing t