en
refuge in the boudoir?

A glance, however, showed that the girl was not there. The electric
light flashed upon a room untenanted. There was the magnificent but
broken rope in its case, wound in gleaming, concentric circles, the
unstrung pearls retrieved from the floor grouped together on the purple
cushion. The door stood open between boudoir and bedroom. Beverley
thought that this had been shut also, though she was not sure. "Clo!"
she called softly. There was some slight sound, or she imagined it.
Quickly she went to the bedroom door, and peeped in, flooding the place
with light. Clo was not to be seen. Turning off the electricity again
Beverley went out to O'Reilly in the hall.

"Come with me one moment," she said. "I've something to show you."

O'Reilly hesitated.

"Is your friend there? Does she wish to speak to me?" he asked.

"Come and see," Beverley persisted. She led the way into the boudoir,
and reluctantly her companion crossed the threshold. Mrs. Sands pointed
to the pearls. "I wanted so much to show them to you. See how wonderful
they are! Mr. Heron's so proud of his wife. I could arrange some plan,
I'm sure, if--if----"

A door slammed, and Beverley's sentence broke off with a gasp.
Mechanically she shut down the cover of the velvet case. If Roger had
come back; if, after all, he had only pretended to go for the
pearl-stringer! She dared not guess what he would think at finding
O'Reilly with her in his house. Too well she remembered the day of their
one quarrel, when he had brought up this man's name in connection with
Clo's, when he had accused her of crying it out in her sleep.

"Mr. O'Reilly," she said, very quietly, "that may be my husband coming
home. If it is, you will have to meet him. It can't be avoided. But I
should like to speak to him first, if you will wait in this room for a
moment."

Without giving him time to answer she ran out. Minutes passed. Justin
heard voices, women's voices. One, it seemed to him, was raised in
anger. After all, it couldn't be Sands who had come! O'Reilly grew
impatient, and fumbling for his watch he found it gone. Great Scott!
Stolen! He remembered a certain small key attached to the chain. In a
flash of enlightenment the whole plot mapped itself out before his eyes.
Furious, his impulse was to dash from the room and denounce the chief
culprit. But Beverley Sands' appeal to his chivalry stopped him like a
chain round his feet.

Now she called his name,