Nobody

Sally's sole comment was an "Oh!" that quivered with its burden of loathing.

"Sorry," Lyttleton finished cheerfully; "but I felt I had to mention it. I dare say the matter was innocent enough, but still Miss Manwaring hasn't explained it, so far as I know; I felt it my duty to speak."

To the inquiring attitude of the detective Sally responded simply: "Find Mrs. Gosnold."

"Yes, miss," he returned with the obstinacy of a slow-witted man. "Meantime, I guess you won't mind my looking round a bit, will you?"

"Looking round?"

"Your room, miss."

Sally gasped. "You have the insolence to suggest searching my room?"

"Well, miss-"

"I forbid you positively to do anything of sort without Mrs. Gosnold's permission."

"There!" Miss Pride interpolated with sour satisfaction. "If she has nothing to fear, why should she object?"

"Do be quiet, Mercedes," Mrs. Standish advised sweetly. "Miss Manwaring is quite right to object, even if innocent."

"You see, miss," Mason persisted, "I have Mrs. Gosnold's authority to make such investigation as I see fit."

"I forbid you to touch anything in this room."

"I'm sorry. I'd rather not. But it looks to me like my duty."

She perceived at length that he was stubbornly bent on this outrageous thing. For a breath she contemplated dashing madly from the place, seeking Trego, and demanding his protection.

But immediately, with a sharp pang, she was reminded that she might no longer depend even on Trego.

As the detective tentatively approached her dressing-table the girl swung a wicker armchair about so that it faced a corner of the room and threw herself angrily into it, her back to the four.

Immediately, as if nothing but her eye had prevented it theretofore, the search was instituted.

She heard drawers opened and closed, sounds of rummaging. She trembled violently with impotent exasperation. It was intolerable, yet it must be endured. There was one satisfaction: they would find nothing, and presently Mrs. Gosnold would reappear and their insolence be properly punished.

She could not believe that Mrs. Gosnold would let it pass unrebuked. And yet.

Of a sudden it was borne in upon the girl that she had found this little island world a heartless, selfish place, that she had yet to meet one of its inhabitants by whom her faith and affection had not been betrayed, deceived and despised.

Remembering this, dared she count upon even Mrs. Gosnold in this hour of greatest need?

Had that lady not, indeed, already failed her protegee by indulging in the whim of this unaccountable disappearance?

Must one believe what had been suggested, that she, believing her confidence misplaced in Sally, was merely keeping out of the way until the unhappy business had been accomplished and the putative cause of it all removed from Gosnold House?

Behind her back the futile business of searching her room, so inevitably predestined to failure and confusion, was being vigorously prosecuted, to judge by the sounds that marked its progress. And from the shifting play of shadows upon the walls she had every reason to believe that Miss Pride was lending the detective a willing hand. If so, it was well in character; nothing could be more consistent with the spinster's disposition than this eagerness to believe the worst of the woman she chose to consider her rival in the affections of Mrs. Gosnold. A pitiful, impotent, jealousy-bitten creature: Sally was almost sorry for her, picturing the abashment of the woman when her hopes proved fruitless, her, fawning overtures toward forgiveness and reconciliation. Possibly she had been one of the two to accuse Sally on the cards.

The other? Not Mrs. Standish. She would hardly direct suspicion against the girl she despised when by so doing she would imperil her own schemes. She was too keenly selfish to cut off her nose to spite her face. Sally could imagine Mrs. Standish as remaining all this while conspicuously aloof, overseeing the search with her habitual manner of weary toleration, but inwardly more than a little tremulous with fear lest the detective or Mercedes chance upon that jewel-case and so upset her claim against the burglary-insurance concern.

Lyttleton, too, would in all likelihood be standing aside, posing with a nonchalant shoulder against the wall, his slender, nicely manicured fingers stroking his scrubby moustache (now that he had discarded the beard of Sir Francis, together with his mask) and not quite hiding the smirk of his contemptible satisfaction-the satisfaction of one who had lied needlessly, meanly, out of sheer spite, and successfully, since his lie, being manufactured out of whole cloth, could never be controverted save by the worthless word of the woman libelled.

More than probably Lyttleton had been the other anonymous informant.

And whatever the outcome of this sickening affair (Sally told herself with a shudder of disgust) she might thank her lucky stars for this blessing, that she had been spared the unspeakable ignominy of not finding Mr. Lyttleton out before it was too late.

Trego, too; though she could consider a little more compassionately the poor figure Trego cut, with his pretensions to sturdy common sense dissipated and exposing the sentimentalist so susceptible that he was unable to resist the blandishments of the first woman who chose to set her cap for him. Poor thing: he would suffer a punishment even beyond his deserts when Mrs. Artemas had consummated her purpose and bound him legally to her.

For all that, Sally felt constrained to admit, Trego had been in a measure right in his contention, though it had needed his folly to persuade her of his wisdom. She was out of her element here. And now she began to despair of ever learning to breathe with ease the rarefied atmosphere of the socially elect. The stifling midsummer air that stagnated in Huckster's Bargain Basement was preferable, heavy though it was with the smell of those to whom soap is a luxury and frequently a luxury uncoveted; there, at least, sincerity and charity did not suffocate and humbler virtues flourished.

Bitterly Sally begrudged the concession that she had been wrong. All along she had nourished her ambition for the society of her betters on the conviction that, with all her virtues, she was as good as anybody. To find that with all her faults she was better, struck a cruel blow at her pride.

A low whistle interrupted at once her morose reflections and the mute activity of the search.

Immediately she heard the detective exclaim: "What's this?"

Miss Pride uttered a shrill cry of satisfaction; Mrs. Standish said sharply: "Aunt Abby's solitaire!"

To this chorus Mr. Lyttleton added a drawl: "Well, I'm damned!"

Unable longer to contain her alarm and curiosity, Sally sprang from her chair and confronted four accusing countenances.

"What do you know about this?" the detective demanded.

Clipped between his thumb and forefinger a huge diamond coruscated in the light of the electrics.

Momentarily the earth quaked beneath Sally's feet.

Her eyes were fixed on the ring and blank with terror; her mouth dropped witlessly ajar; there was no more colour in her face than in this paper; never a countenance spelled guilt more damningly than hers.

"Yes!" Miss Pride chimed in triumphantly.

"What have you to say to this, young woman?"

Sally heard, as if remotely, her own voice ask hoarsely: "What-what is it'?"

"A diamond ring," Mason responded obviously.

"Aunt Abby's," Mrs. Standish repeated.

Mason glanced at this last: "You recognise it?"

The woman nodded.

"Where did you find the thing?" Sally demanded.

"Rolled up inside this pair of stockings." Mason indicated the limp, black silk affairs which he had taken from a dresser-drawer. "Well, how about it?"