And in three weeks the purloined ring came back to her, in a box of violets with no name attached.

The third instance was a recent one, and had come to Mr. Driscoll’s ears directly from the lady suffering the loss.  She was a woman of uncompromising integrity, who felt it her duty to make known to this gentleman the following facts:  She had just left a studio reception, and was standing at the curb waiting for a taxicab to draw up, when a small boy—­a street arab—­darted toward her from the other side of the street, and thrusting into her hand something small and hard, cried breathlessly as he slipped away, “It’s yours, ma’am; you dropped it.”  Astonished, for she had not been conscious of any loss, she looked down at her treasure trove and found it to be a small medallion which she sometimes wore on a chain at her belt.  But she had not worn it that day, nor any day for weeks.  Then she remembered.  She had worn it a month before to a similar reception at this same studio.  A number of young girls had stood about her admiring it—­ she remembered well who they were; the Inseparables, of course, and to please them she had slipped it from its chain.  Then something had happened,—­something which diverted her attention entirely,—­and she had gone home without the medallion; had, in fact, forgotten it, only to recall its loss now.  Placing it in her bag, she looked hastily about her.  A crowd was at her back; nothing to be distinguished there.  But in front, on the opposite side of the street, stood a club-house, and in one of its windows she perceived a solitary figure looking out.  It was that of Miss Driscoll’s father.  He could imagine her conclusion.

In vain he denied all knowledge of the matter.  She told him other stories which had come to her ears of thefts as mysterious, followed by restorations as peculiar as this one, finishing with, “It is your daughter, and people are beginning to say so.”

And Miss Strange, brooding over these instances, would have said the same, but for Miss Driscoll’s absolute serenity of demeanour and complete abandonment to love.  These seemed incompatible with guilt; these, whatever the appearances, proclaimed innocence—­an innocence she was here to prove if fortune favoured and the really guilty person’s madness should again break forth.

For madness it would be and nothing less, for any hand, even the most experienced, to draw attention to itself by a repetition of old tricks on an occasion so marked.  Yet because it would take madness, and madness knows no law, she prepared herself for the contingency under a mask of girlish smiles which made her at once the delight and astonishment of her watchful and uneasy host.

With the exception of the diamonds worn by the Ambassadress, there was but one jewel of consequence to be seen at the dinner that night; but how great was that consequence and with what splendour it invested the snowy neck it adorned!