“I’ll tell you.  There is a man—­I won’t mention his name, but you know it very well, and maybe it is in your mind now—­who wants me to marry him.  He has wanted it for some time—­I think because he admires women who are before the public and applauded by the world; also, perhaps, because I have refused him, and he is one who wants most what he finds hardest to get.  He is not a scrupulous person, but he has some power and a good deal of influence, because he is very highly connected, and when people have ‘axes to grind’ he helps to grind them.  He has suspected for some time that I cared for M. du Laurier, and for that he has hated Raoul.  I have fancied—­that he hired detectives to spy upon me; and my instinct as well as common sense told me that he would let no chance slip to separate me from the man I love.  He would work mischief between us—­or he would try to ruin Raoul, or crush me—­anything to keep us apart.  When I saw the Commissary of Police I was hardly surprised, and though I didn’t know what pretext had brought him, I said to myself ‘That is the work of—­’”

“Perhaps better not mention the name, Mademoiselle.”

“I didn’t mean to.  I leave that to your—­imagination.  ’This is the work of the man whose love is more cruel than hate,’ I thought.  While I wondered what possible use the police could make of my letters, I was shaking with terror lest they should come upon them and they should somehow fall into—­a certain man’s hands.  Then, at last, they did find the case, just as I’d begun to hope it was safe.  I begged the Commissary of Police not to open it.  In vain.  When he did, what was my relief to see the diamond necklace you must have heard of!—­my relief and my surprise.  And now I’m going to confide in you the secret of another, speaking to you as my friend, and a man of honour.

“Those jewels had been stolen only a few days ago from Monsieur du Laurier, and he was in despair at their loss, for they belonged to a dear friend of his—­an inveterate gambler, but an adorable woman.  She dared not tell her husband of money that she’d lost, but begged Raoul to sell the diamonds for her in Amsterdam and have them replaced by paste.  On his way there the necklace was stolen by an expert thief, who must somehow have learned what was going on through the pawnbroker with whom the jewels had been in pledge—­for a few thousand francs only.  You can imagine my astonishment at seeing the necklace returned in such a miraculous way.  I thought that Ivor Dundas must have got it back, meaning to give it to me as a surprise—­and the letters afterwards.  And it was only to keep the letters out of the affair altogether at any price—­evidences in black and white of my silly flirtation—­and also to avoid any association of Raoul’s name with the necklace, that I told the Commissary of Police the leather case had in it a present from my lover.  I spoke impulsively, in sheer desperation; and the instant the words were out I would have cut off my hand to take back the stupid falsehood.  But what good to deny what I had just said?  The men wouldn’t have believed me.