or little expected heir
defrauded ere his birth; of the crushing contempt I felt for myself and
the bishop as a pair of witless idiots unable to see our way out of the
dilemma; all this boiling and surging through my soul, I can only
wonder--Domenico having given himself a holiday, and the kitchen-maid
doing her worst and wickedest--that gout or jaundice did not put an end
to this story at once.

"Uncle Paul!" Leta was looking her sweetest when she tripped into my
room next morning. "I've news for you. She," pointing a delicate
forefinger in the direction of the corridor, "is going! Her Bokums have
reached Paris at last, and sent for her to join them at the Grand
Hotel."

I was thunderstruck. The longed-for deliverance had but come to remove
hopelessly and forever out of my reach Lady Carwitchet and the great
Valdez sapphire.

"Why, aren't you overjoyed? I am. We are going to celebrate the event by
a dinner-party. Tom's hospitable soul is vexed by the lack of
entertainment we had provided for her. We must ask the Brownleys some
day or other, and they will be delighted to meet anything in the way of
a ladyship, or such smart folks as the Duberly-Parkers. Then we may as
well have the Blomfields, and air that awful modern Sevres
dessert-service she gave us when we were married." I had no objection to
make, and she went on, rubbing her soft cheek against my shoulder like
the purring little cat she was: "Now I want you to do something to
please me--and Mrs. Blomfield. She has set her heart on seeing your
rubies, and though I know you hate her about as much as you do that
Sevres china--"

"What! Wear my rubies with that! I won't. I'll tell you what I will do,
though. I've got some carbuncles as big as prize gooseberries, a whole
set. Then you have only to put those Bohemian glass vases and candelabra
on the table, and let your gardener do his worst with his great forced,
scentless, vulgar blooms, and we shall all be in keeping." Leta pouted.
An idea struck me. "Or I'll do as you wish, on one condition. You get
Lady Carwitchet to wear her big sapphire, and don't tell her I wish it."

I lived through the next few days as one in some evil dream. The
sapphires, like twin spectres, haunted me day and night. Was ever man so
tantalized? To hold the shadow and see the substance dangled temptingly
within reach. The bishop made no sign of ridding me of my unwelcome
charge, and the thought of what might happen in a case of
burgla