Gordon’s voice had grown very cold and hard.  He stopped and ran his fingers down into his pocket and pulled out a little leather bag.  The people at the table watched him in silence as he opened it and took out a dull silver chain with a gold heart hanging from it.

“This is it,” he said, gently.  He leaned across the table, with his eyes fixed on those of the American girl, and dropped the chain in front of her.  “Would you like to see it?” he said.

The rest moved curiously forward to look at the little heap of gold and silver as it lay on the white cloth.  But the girl, with her eyes half closed and her lips pressed together, pushed it on with her hand to the man who sat next her, and bowed her head slightly, as though it was an effort for her to move at all.  The wife of the Austrian Minister gave a little sigh of relief.

“I should say your story did end badly, Mr. Gordon,” she said.  “It is terribly sad, and so unnecessarily so.”

“I don’t know,” said Lady Arbuthnot, thoughtfully—­“I don’t know; it seems to me it was better.  As Mr. Gordon says, the man was hardly worthy of her.  A man should have something more to offer a woman than love; it is a woman’s prerogative to be loved.  Any number of men may love her; it is nothing to their credit:  they cannot help themselves.”

“Well,” said General Kent, “if all true stories turn out as badly as that one does, I will take back what I said against those the story-writers tell.  I prefer the ones Anstey and Jerome make up.  I call it a most unpleasant story.”

“But it isn’t finished yet,” said Gordon, as he leaned over and picked up the chain and locket.  “There is still a little more.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon!” said the wife of the Austrian Minister, eagerly.  “But then,” she added, “you can’t make it any better.  You cannot bring the man back to life.”

“No,” said Gordon, “but I can make it a little worse.”

“Ah, I see,” said Phillips, with a story-teller’s intuition—­“the girl.”

“The first day I reached London I went to her banker’s and got her address,” continued Gordon.  “And I wrote, saying I wanted to see her, but before I could get an answer I met her the next afternoon at a garden-party.  At least I did not meet her; she was pointed out to me.  I saw a very beautiful girl surrounded by a lot of men, and asked who she was, and found out it was the woman I had written to, the owner of the chain and locket; and I was also told that her engagement had just been announced to a young Englishman of family and position, who had known her only a few months, and with whom she was very much in love.  So you see,” he went on, smiling, “that it was better that he died, believing in her and in her love for him.  Mr. Phillips, now, would have let him live to return and find her married; but Nature is kinder than writers of fiction, and quite as dramatic.”