idn't know what to do.
I had only my jewels. I thought of all the schemes I had ever read, of
pawning them, of having paste replicas made, of trying to collect the
burglary insurance, of--"

"But you didn't do anything like that, did you?" interrupted Craig
hastily.

"No, no," she cried. "I thought if I did, then it wouldn't be long
before this Sherburne would be back again for more. Oh," she almost
wailed, dabbing at the genuine tears with her dainty lace handkerchief
while her shoulders trembled with a repressed convulsive sob, "I--I am
utterly wretched--crushed."

"The scoundrel!" I muttered.

Kennedy shook his head at me slowly. "Calling names won't help matters
now," he remarked tersely. Then in an encouraging tone he added, "You
have done just the right thing, Mrs. Seabury, in not starting to pay the
blackmail. The secret of the success of these fellows is that their
victims prefer losing jewelry and money to going to the police and
having a lot of unpleasant notoriety."

"Yes, I know that," she agreed hastily, "but--my husband! If he hears,
he will believe the worst, and--I--I really love and respect
Judson--though," she added, "he might have seen that I liked dancing
and--innocent amusements of the sort still. I am not an old woman."

I could not help wondering if the whole truth were told in her rather
plaintive remark, or whether she was overplaying what was really a minor
complaint. Judson Seabury, I knew from hearsay, was a man of middle age
to whom, as to so many, business and the making of money had loomed as
large as life itself. Competitors had even accused him of being ruthless
when he was convinced that he was right, and I could well imagine that
Mrs. Seabury was right in her judgment of the nature of the man if he
became convinced for any reason that someone had crossed his path in his
relations with his wife.

"Where did you usually--er--meet Sherburne?" asked Craig, casually
guiding the conversation.

"Why--at the Vanderveer--always," she replied.

"Would you mind meeting him there again this afternoon so that I could
see him?" asked Kennedy. "Perhaps it would be best, anyhow, to let him
think that you are going to do as he demands, so that we can gain a
little time."

She looked up, startled. "Yes--I can do that--but don't you think it is
risky? Do you think there is any way I can get free from him? Suppose he
makes a new demand. What shall I do? Oh, Professor Kennedy, you do not,
you