ime Clara smiled. It crept out upon her face, as it were
involuntarily, but she sat there smiling in contemplation for quite ten
seconds. At last, "You want me to suppress my information? My dear
Flora, don't you think you want me to do more than is honest?"

"Honest!" Flora cried. The words sounded hideous to her on Clara's
tongue; and yet what right had she, she thought with shame, to judge of
Clara's honesty when she herself was leagued with a thief? "Clara," she
said humbly, before this upholder of the right, "I can't pretend I'm not
suppressing things. I've only asked you to see me before you do anything
more. Now, you've come. Will you tell me one thing--did you bring the
picture with you?"

Clara weighed it. "Well, if I did--"

This was the considering Clara, and Flora realized whatever she could
expect from her she couldn't expect mercy. It was another thing she must
appeal to.

"Clara," she urged, "wait three days, and you shall have the whole of
it. You have only the picture now. You shall have the jewel, too. Then
you can get the reward and still be--honest."

She let the word fall into the silence fearfully, as if she were afraid
Clara might detect its sneer. But this time Clara neither smiled nor
frowned.

"It isn't the reward I'm thinking about. That's really very little,
considering."

"Twenty thousand dollars!"

"Would that be much to you?"

"No," Flora admitted; "at least I mean I could pay it."

"Well, then," Clara triumphed, "why, the picture alone, if it's worth
anything, is worth more than that." With a bird-like lifting of the head
she gave a sidelong interrogative glance.

Flora, for a moment, steadily returned the look. It was coming over her
what Clara meant; a meaning so simple it was absurd she had not thought
of it before--so hateful that it was all she could do to face it. She
felt a tightness in her throat that was not tears. Shame and anger
contended in her. Oh, for the power to have refused that shameful
bargain--to have scorned it! She turned away. She closed her eyes. In
her mind she saw the figure of Kerr moving quietly about the winding
walks with Mrs. Herrick. She faced sharply about. "What is it worth to
you?"

Clara put her off with the last sweet meekness of her cleverness.
"Whatever it's worth to you--and him."

Flora was in command of herself now. "There are some things I can not
set a price on. If this is what you have come down for, we are simply
waiting for