day. My chaplain--actually, my chaplain--tells me that he is going
out as a temperance missionary to equatorial Africa, and has the
assurance to add that he believes my daughter is not indisposed to
accompany him!" His consummating wrath acted as a momentary stimulant.
He sat upright, his eyes flashing and his brow thunderous. I felt for
that chaplain. Then he collapsed miserably. "The sapphires will have to
be produced, identified, revalued. How shall I come out of it? Think of
the disgrace, the ripping up of old scandals! Even if I were to compound
with Lady Carwitchet, the sum she hinted at was too monstrous. She wants
more than my money. Help me, Mr. Acton! For the sake of your own family
interest, help me!"

"I beg your pardon--family interests? I don't understand."

"If my daughter is childless, her next of kin is poor Marmaduke Panton,
who is dying at Cannes, not married, or likely to marry; and failing
him, your nephew, Sir Thomas Acton, succeeds."

My nephew Tom! Leta, or Leta's baby, might come to be the possible
inheritor of the great Valdez sapphire! The blood rushed to my head as I
looked at the great shining swindle before me. "What diabolic jugglery
was at work when the exchange was made?" I demanded fiercely.

"It must have been on the last occasion of her wearing the sapphires in
London. I ought never to have let her out of my sight."

"You must put a stop to Miss Panton's marriage in the first place," I
pronounced as autocratically as he could have done himself.

"Not to be thought of," he admitted helplessly. "Mira has my force of
character. She knows her rights, and she will have her jewels. I want
you to take charge of the--thing for me. If it's in the house she'll
make me produce it. She'll inquire at the banker's. If _you_ have it we
can gain time, if but for a day or two." He broke off. Carriage wheels
were crashing on the gravel outside. We looked at one another in
consternation. Flight was imperative. I hurried him downstairs and out
of the conservatory just as the door-bell rang. I think we both lost our
heads in the confusion. He shoved the case into my hands, and I pocketed
it, without a thought of the awful responsibility I was incurring, and
saw him disappear into the shelter of the friendly night.

When I think of what my feelings were that evening--of my murderous
hatred of that smirking jesting Jezebel who sat opposite me at dinner,
my wrathful indignation at the thought of the po