t the cause of the change in her was something far less picturesque,
something concrete and sinister. He felt sure of that....

VII

Unless--but that was ridiculous! Impossible!

He sprang to his feet, incredulous, disgusted at the mere thought.

But why not? She was very young, and older and wiser women were afflicted
with inconsistencies, little tenacious desires and vanities never quite
to be grasped by the elemental male.

He went over to a bookcase containing heavy works of reference and
pressed his index finger into the molding. It swung outward, revealing
the door of a safe. He manipulated the combination, took from a drawer of
the interior a box, opened it and stared at a magnificent Burmah ruby. It
was or had been a royal jewel, presented to Masewell Price by one of the
great princes of India whose portrait he had painted. The pearls had all
been captured long since by Price's sisters and by Morgan V. for his
wife; but this ruby his mother had given him as she lay dying. She had
bidden him leave it in his father's safe until he was out of college, and
then keep it as closely in his personal possession as possible. It would
be turned over to him with the rest of his private fortune.

"Never let any woman wear it," she had whispered. "It brings luck to men
but not to women. Nothing could have affected my luck one way or the
other--I was born to have nothing I wanted, but you, dear little boy.
Keep it for your luck and in a safe place, but near you."

He had looked back upon this scene as he grew older as the mere
expression of a whim of dissolution, but it had made so deep an
impression upon him at the time that insensibly the words sank into his
plastic mind creating a superstition that refused to yield to reason. The
ruby was Helene's birthstone and she was passionately fond of it. She had
begged and coaxed to wear this jewel, and upon one occasion had stamped
her little foot and sulked throughout the evening. He had given her a
ruby bar, had the clasp of her pearl necklace set with rabies, and last
Christmas had presented her with a small but fine "pigeon blood"
encircled with diamonds. These had enraptured her for the moment, but she
had always circled back to the historic stone, over which her indulgent
husband was so unaccountably obstinate.

Until lately. He recalled that for several months she had not mentioned
it. Could she have been indulging in a prolonged attack of interior
sulks, which affe