"
My nephew Tom! Leta, or Leta's baby, might come to be the possible
inheritor of the great Valdez sapphire! The blood rushed to my head as I
looked at the great shining swindle before me. "What diabolic jugglery was
at work when the exchange was made?" I demanded fiercely.
"It must have been on the last occasion of her wearing the sapphires in
London. I ought never to have let her out of my sight."
"You must put a stop to Miss Panton's marriage in the first place," I
pronounced as autocratically as he could have done himself.
"Not to be thought of," he admitted helplessly. "Mira has my force of
character. She knows her rights, and she will have her jewels. I want you
to take charge of the--thing for me. If it's in the house she'll make me
produce it. She'll inquire at the banker's. If _you_ have it we can gain
time, if but for a day or two." He broke off. Carriage wheels were
crashing on the gravel outside. We looked at one another in consternation.
Flight was imperative. I hurried him downstairs and out of the
conservatory just as the door bell rang. I think we both lost our heads in
the confusion. He shoved the case into my hands, and I pocketed it,
without a thought of the awful responsibility I was incurring, and saw him
disappear into the shelter of the friendly night.
When I think of what my feelings were that evening--of my murderous hatred
of that smirking, jesting Jezebel who sat opposite me at dinner, my
wrathful indignation at the thought of the poor little expected heir
defrauded ere his birth; of the crushing contempt I felt for myself and
the bishop as a pair of witless idiots unable to see our way out of the
dilemma; all this boiling and surging through my soul, I can only
wonder--Domenico having given himself a holiday, and the kitchen maid
doing her worst and wickedest--that gout or jaundice did not put an end to
this story at once.
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