ert, 'e 'as valued ze pearls one time already
at 'is own place, under your eye, Mistaire Sand. Now 'e 'as to come to
your 'ouse! Mazette! But you must tink me a smart one, saire, if I could
change false tings for real in ze last minute!"

"I think some other smart men might have changed them without you or me
being smart enough to know the difference," Roger explained. "I believe
in making a ship watertight before she goes to sea."

"You are right," Lovoresco said, shrugging his shoulders. "I am pleased
once more to meet ze expert."

"Mr. Simon Lecourt," announced the butler.

At a quarter to four--the cheque having been signed--Roger was shaking
hands with the jewel expert he had summoned, and bowing to Count
Lovoresco. The pearls were his, and he was impatient for Beverley. In
five or six minutes she ought to arrive.

Beverley stepped into the lift as Count Lovoresco and Simon Lecourt
stepped out. As they passed she heard Roger's name, and her heart
jumped. These were strangers to her, but they had perhaps been calling
on Roger. What if they were connected with the past terror which had
begun lately to seem as dim as a dreadful dream? What if they had been
telling Roger?

Such a thought would not have come, save for the scene she had gone
through. With her nerves keyed to breaking point she went up to her own
floor with somewhat the sensation she might have had in stepping from
the tumbril to the guillotine. It was all she could do not to scream at
Sister Lake in the hall; and when Roger appeared also it seemed to
Beverley that she would faint.

Roger did not share the nurse's interest in Clo's outing; but he wanted
Beverley.

"Good girl!" he exclaimed, trying to be gay. "You're back ahead of time.
Send one of the servants down with money for Miss Riley. Come into the
study; I've got something to show you. When you've seen it you'll know
why I asked you to be home by four."

"I'll be there in a minute!" Beverley answered. "Let me take off my hat
first. I've rather a headache!"

She turned toward her room, hoping that Roger would wait in the study,
thus giving her a chance to find what she had to find, and take it to
Clo in the waiting auto. But Roger, remorseful already for his disloyal
thought connecting her with O'Reilly, followed.

"If you'd a prophetic soul," he said, "your headache would go. Are you
good at guessing, Bev?"

The girl was at her wits' end. Already she had almost fibbed, in
explainin