At last footsteps were heard on the stairs and the sound of strange voices, mingled with that of Frank, who was protesting against his brother’s rooms being entered.

‘You will lose every servant you have if we do not serve all alike,’ was the answer.

Then Frank knocked at his brother’s door and asked admittance.

‘We must do it to pacify the servants,’ he said, as Arthur refused, bidding him go about him business.

After a little further expostulation Arthur arose, and, unlocking the door, bade them enter and look as long as they pleased and where they pleased.

It was a mere matter of form, for not a drawer or box was disturbed; but Jerry’s breath came in gasps, and her eyes were like saucers, as she watched the men moving from place to place, and then looked timidly at Arthur to see how he was taking it.  He took it very coolly, and when it was over and the men were about to leave, he bade them come again as often as they liked; they would always find him there ready to receive them, but the diamonds—­nix.

This last he said in a low tone as he turned to Jerry, who, the moment they were alone and he had seated himself beside her, put her head on his arm and burst into a hysterical fit of crying.

‘Why, Cherry, what is it?  Why are you crying so?’ he asked, in much concern.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ the sobbed; ’only I was so scared all the time they were in the room.  What if they had found them!  What if they should think that—­that—­I took them, and should send me to prison, and cut off my hair:  and make me eat bread and water and mush, which I hate!’

Arthur looked at her a moment, and then with a view to comfort her, said, laughingly: 

‘They would not send you to prison, for I would go in your stead.’

’Would you?  Could you?  I mean could somebody go for another somebody, if they wanted to ever go much?’ Jerry asked, eagerly, as she lifted her tear-stained face to Arthur’s.

Without clearly understanding her meaning, and with only a wish to quiet her, Arthur answered, at random: 

’Certainly.  Have you never heard of people who gave life for another’s?  So, why not be a substitute, and go to prison, if necessary?’

‘Yes,’ Jerry answered, with a long-drawn breath, and the cloud lifted a little from her face.

After a moment, however, she asked, abruptly: 

’Suppose the one who took the diamonds will not give them up, and somebody else knows where they are, ought that somebody else tell?’

‘Certainly, or be an accessory to the crime,’ was Arthur’s reply.

Jerry did not at all know what an accessory was, but it had an awful sound to her, and she asked: 

’What do they do to an accessory?  Punish her—­him, I mean—­just the same?’

‘Yes, of course,’ Arthur said, scarcely heeding what she was asking him, and never dreaming of the wild fancy which had taken possession of her.