“Forgive me!” murmured Raoul, in the depths of remorse again.

“Shall we go and look, or shall we leave them in peace?”

“Leave them in peace, by all means.”

“The man will be slipping away soon, no doubt.  Both Therese and Annette are good little girls.”

“Don’t let’s bother about them.  You will be sending me away soon, too, and I shall deserve it.  Brute that I am.  You were so tired, and I—­”

“Oh, I’m better now,” I said.  “Of course I must send you away by and by, but not quite yet.  First, I want to ask if you weren’t glad when you saw the jewels?”

“Jewels?” echoed Raoul.  “What jewels?”

“You don’t mean to say you haven’t yet opened the little bag I gave you at the theatre?” I exclaimed.

Raoul looked half ashamed.  “Dearest, don’t think me ungrateful,” he said, “but before I had a chance to open it I met Godensky, and he told me—­that lie.  It lit a fire in my brain.  I forgot all about the bag, and haven’t thought of it again till this minute.”

At last I laughed with sincerity.  “Oh, Raoul, Raoul, you’re not fit for this work-a-day world!  Well, I’m glad, after all, that I shall be with you, when you see what that little insignificant bag which you’ve forgotten all this tune has in it.  Take it out of your pocket, and let’s open it together.”

For the moment I was almost happy; and that Raoul would be happy, I knew.

His hand went to the inner pocket of his coat, into which I had seen him put the brocade bag.  But it did not come out again.  It groped; and his face flushed.  “Good heavens, Maxine,” he said, “I hope you weren’t in earnest when you told me that bag held something very valuable to us both, for I’ve lost it.  You know, I’ve been almost mad.  I had my handkerchief in that pocket.  I must have pulled it out, and—­”

My knees seemed to give way under me.  I half fell onto a sofa.

“Raoul,” I said, in a queer stifled voice, “the bag had in it the Duchess de Montpellier’s diamonds.”

IVOR DUNDAS’ PART

CHAPTER XII

IVOR GOES INTO THE DARK

Never had I been caught in a situation which I liked less than finding myself, long after midnight, locked by Maxine de Renzie into her boudoir, while within hearing she did her best to convince her lover that no stranger had come on her account to the house.

I had never before visited her in Paris, though she had described her little place there to me when we knew each other in London; and in groping about trying to find another door or a window in the dark room, I ran constant risks of making my presence known by stumbling against the furniture or knocking down some ornament.