"I didn't
touch the pearls after I put them away, and brought them in here. Oh,
please don't tease me! This is too serious!"

"Tease you!" echoed Miss Blackburne. "Why, Mrs. Sands, I wouldn't do
such a thing! I wish to goodness I'd insisted on your staying till I'd
opened the case and counted the pearls. I don't think I was ever so
foolish before! Now, maybe you'll believe that I've sto----"

"No--no!" exclaimed Beverley, calmed by the other's distress. "Of course
I believe nothing so foolish. Even if you--what nonsense to speak of
it!--but even if you wanted the pearls, you couldn't hide them. Let me
think! Let me go back in my mind over everything that happened. I was in
the next room practically all the time when I wasn't here. The door was
open between. I could have seen any one who came in. Oh, the pearls
can't have been stolen. There's been nobody to steal them."

"What about our little friend, Clo Riley?" Miss Blackburne asked. "Could
she possibly know anything? Mightn't she help with some suggestion? I
thought hers one of the brightest, quickest minds I ever met. Indeed, I
owe my life to its quickness."

Beverley forgot to answer. The pearl-stringer's words had sent her
thoughts travelling along a new path. Suddenly she became aware that she
had deceived Miss Blackburne and herself. When she made that statement,
she had not reflected. Clo's return, in O'Reilly's company, now seemed
so long ago that she had not cast her mind back so far in connection
with the pearls. She had thought of what she had done since O'Reilly's
refusal of her request, and his departure. She had pictured herself as
having seen the pearls in their case since then. But she had not done
so. She had seen only the closed case, and had naturally taken it for
granted that the pearls were in it. As a matter of fact, she had not
actually seen them since she herself closed the velvet case. Could Clo
possibly have dashed into the boudoir and hidden the pearls?

"I'll speak to Clo," she finally replied, with a dazed look after a
silence that puzzled Miss Blackburne.

"Please stay here. I'll be back in three or four minutes, and bring Clo
with me, if she's well enough."

Clo, denuded of the stolen cloak, had flung herself upon the bed to
rest, and call back the force of her vitality for a later effort. Her
nerves were throbbing like hot wires, and she jumped at the opening of
the door.

"Oh, I'm glad it's you!" she sighed, at sight of Beverl