"It's a queer story."
I didn't want to hear her anecdote, especially as I saw she wanted to tell
it. What I _did_ want was to see that pendant again. She had thrust it
back among her laces, only the loop which held it to the velvet being
visible. It was set with three small sapphires, and even from a distance I
clearly made them out to be imitations, and poor ones. I felt a queer
thrill of self-mistrust. Was the large stone no better? Could I, even for
an instant, have been dazzled by a sham, and a sham of that quality? The
events of the evening had flurried and confused me. I wished to think them
over in quiet. I would go to bed.
My rooms at the Manor are the best in the house. Leta will have it so. I
must explain their position for a reason to be understood later. My
bedroom is in the southeast angle of the house; it opens on one side into
a sitting-room in the east corridor, the rest of which is taken up by the
suite of rooms occupied by Tom and Leta; and on the other side into my
bathroom, the first room in the south corridor, where the principal guest
chambers are, to one of which it was originally the dressing-room. Passing
this room I noticed a couple of housemaids preparing it for the night, and
discovered with a shiver that Lady Carwitchet was to be my next-door
neighbor. It gave me a turn.
The bishop's strange warning must have unnerved me.
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