ment. As the carriage began to
move and Kerr's face disappeared from the square of the window, she
turned to Flora.

"Have you and Harry quarreled over that man?"

Flora's voice was low. "No. But Harry--Harry--" she stammered, hardly
knowing how to put it, then put it most truly: "Harry is not quite
himself to-night."

Flora lay back in the carriage. She was dimly aware of Clara's presence
beside her, but for the moment Clara had ceased to be a factor. The
shape that filled all the foreground of her thought was Harry. He loomed
alarming to her imagination--all the more so since, for the moment, he
had seemed to lose his grip. That was another thing she could not quite
understand. That burst of violent irritation following, as it had, Judge
Buller's words! If Kerr had been the speaker it would have been natural
enough, since all through this interview Harry's evident antagonism had
seemed strained to the snapping point.

But poor Judge Buller had been harmless enough. He had been merely
theorizing. But--wait! She made so sharp a movement that Clara looked
at her. The judge's theory might be close to facts that Harry was
cognizant of.

For herself she had had no way of finding out how the sapphire had got
adrift. But hadn't Harry? Hadn't he followed up that singular scene with
the blue-eyed Chinaman by other visits to the goldsmith's shop? Why,
yesterday, when he was supposed to be in Burlingame, Clara had seen him
in Chinatown. The idea burst upon her then. Harry was after the whole
ring. He counted the part she held already his, and for the rest he was
groping in Chinatown; he was trying to reach it through the
imperturbable little goldsmith. But he had not reached it yet--and she
could read his irritation at his failure in his violent outburst when
Judge Buller so innocently flung the difficulties in his face. She knew
as much now as she could bear. If Harry did not suspect Kerr, it would
be strange. But--Harry waiting to make sure of a reward before he
unmasked a thief! It was an ugly thought!

And would he wait for the rest now--now that the situation was so
galling to him? Might not he just decide to take the sapphire, and with
the evidence of that, risk his putting his hand on the "Idol" when he
grasped the thief?

The carriage was stopping. Clara was making ready to get out. She braced
herself to face Clara, in the light, with a casual exterior--but when
she had reached her own rooms she sank in a heap in