“I didn’t.  I can show you the receipted bill.  All I possess is honestly come by.  What could you do with it, even if I gave it you?  You couldn’t sell it as the Valdez, and you can’t get it cut up as you might if it were real.”

“If it’s only bogus, why are you always in such a flutter about it?  I’ll do something with it, never fear.  Hand over.”

“I can’t.  I haven’t got it.  I had to raise something on it before I left town.”

“Will you swear it’s not in that wardrobe?  I dare say you will.  I mean to see.  Give me those keys.”

I heard a struggle and a jingle, then the wardrobe door must have been flung open, for a streak of light struck through a crack in the wood of the back.  Creeping close and peeping through, I could see an awful sight.  Lady Carwitchet in a flannel wrapper, minus hair, teeth, complexion, pointing a skinny forefinger that quivered with rage at her son, who was out of the range of my vision.

“Stop that, and throw those keys down here directly, or I’ll rouse the house.  Sir Thomas is a magistrate, and will lock you up as soon as look at you.”  She clutched at the bell rope as she spoke.  “I’ll swear I’m in danger of my life from you and give you in charge.  Yes, and when you’re in prison I’ll keep you there till you die.  I’ve often thought I’d do it.  How about the hotel robberies last summer at Cowes, eh?  Mightn’t the police be grateful for a hint or two?  And how about—­”

The keys fell with a crash on the bed, accompanied by some bad language in an apologetic tone, and the door slammed to.  I crept trembling to bed.

This new and horrible complication of the situation filled me with dismay.  Lord Carwitchet’s wolfish glance at my rubies took a new meaning.  They were safe enough, I believed—­but the sapphire!  If he disbelieved his mother, how long would she be able to keep it from his clutches?  That she had some plot of her own of which the bishop would eventually be the victim I did not doubt, or why had she not made her bargain with him long ago?  But supposing she took fright, lost her head, allowed her son to wrest the jewel from her, or gave consent to its being mutilated, divided!  I lay in a cold perspiration till morning.

My terrors haunted me all day.  They were with me at breakfast time when Lady Carwitchet, tripping in smiling, made a last attempt to induce me to accompany her and keep her “bad, bad boy” from getting among “those horrid betting men.”

They haunted me through the long peaceful day with Leta and the tete-a-tete dinner, but they swarmed around and beset me sorest when, sitting alone over my sitting-room fire, I listened for the return of the drag party.  I read my newspaper and brewed myself some hot strong drink, but there comes a time of night when no fire can warm and no drink can cheer.  The bishop’s despairing face kept me company, and his troubles and the wrongs of the future heir