essions, fastened the door of communication with my
bedroom and dragged a heavy ottoman across it.

Then I stowed away my emerald in my strong-box. It is built into the
wall of my sitting-room, and masked by the lower part of an old carved
oak bureau. I put away even the rings I wore habitually, keeping out
only an inferior cat's-eye for workaday wear. I had just made all safe
when Leta tapped at the door and came in to wish me good night. She
looked flushed and harassed and ready to cry. "Uncle Paul," she began,
"I want you to go up to town at once, and stay away till I send for
you."

"My dear--!" I was too amazed to expostulate.

"We've got a--a pestilence among us," she declared, her foot tapping the
ground angrily, "and the least we can do is to go into quarantine. Oh,
I'm so sorry and so ashamed! The poor bishop! I'll take good care that
no one else shall meet that woman here. You did your best for me, Uncle
Paul, and managed admirably, but it was all no use. I hoped against hope
that what between the dusk of the drawing-room before dinner, and being
put at opposite ends of the table, we might get through without a
meeting--"

"But, my dear, explain. Why shouldn't the bishop and Lady Carwitchet
meet? Why is it worse for him than anyone else?"

"Why? I thought everybody had heard of that dreadful wife of his who
nearly broke his heart. If he married her for her money it served him
right, but Lady Landor says she was very handsome and really in love
with him at first. Then Lady Carwitchet got hold of her and led her into
all sorts of mischief. She left her husband--he was only a rector with a
country living in those days--and went to live in town, got into a
horrid fast set, and made herself notorious. You _must_ have heard of
her."

"I heard of her sapphires, my dear. But I was in Brazil at the time."

"I wish you had been at home. You might have found her out. She was
furious because her husband refused to let her wear the great Valdez
sapphire. It had been in the Montanaro family for some generations, and
her father settled it first on her and then on her little girl--the
bishop being trustee. He felt obliged to take away the little girl, and
send her off to be brought up by some old aunts in the country, and he
locked up the sapphire. Lady Carwitchet tells as a splendid joke how
they got the copy made in Paris, and it did just as well for the people
to stare at. No wonder the bishop hates the very name o