," Flora said faintly.

Mrs. Herrick gave her a quick glance. She had not a moment's hesitation
as to whom the "he" meant. "You will have to ask him when he comes."

"Do you think he will come back?"

Mrs. Herrick had the heart to smile.

"But think of what I have done. I have lost him the sapphire, and he
loves it--loves it as much as he does me."

Again the glance. "Did he tell you that?"

Flora nodded. The other seemed intently to consider. "He will come
back," she declared.

Upheld by her friend's assurance, Flora found the endurance necessary to
spend the day, an empty, stagnant day, in moving about a house and
garden where a few hours ago had passed such a storm of events. She
reviewed them, lived them over again, but without taking account of
them. Her mind, that had worked so sharply, was now in abeyance. She
lived in emotion, but with a tantalizing sense of something unexplained
which her understanding had not the power to reach out to and grasp. For
a day more she existed under the same roof with Clara, for Clara stayed
on.

At first it seemed to Flora extraordinary that she dared, but presently
it began to appear how much more extraordinary it would have been if
Clara had promptly fled. By waiting a discreet length of time, as if
nothing had happened, she put herself indubitably on the right side of
things. Indeed, when one thought, had she ever been legally off it?

That was the very horror. Clara had simply turned the situation over and
seen its market value, and how enormously she had made it pay! Flora
herself had paid; and she had seen the evidence that Harry had paid,
paid for his poor little hour of escape which a mere murderer might have
granted him in pity. Yet Clara could walk beside them, meet them at
dinner with the same smooth face, chat upon the terrace with the
unsuspecting Mrs. Herrick, and even face Flora in a security which had
the appearance of serenity, since she knew that nothing ever would be
told. At every turn in the day's business Flora kept meeting that placid
presence; and it was not until the end of the day that she met it primed
for departure. Flora was with Mrs. Herrick, and Clara, coming to seek
them out, had an air of casual farewell. The small, sweet smile she
presented behind her misty veil, the delicate white-gloved hand she
offered were symbols of enduring friendship, as if she were leaving them
only for a few hours; as if, when Flora returned to town, she would f