When supper was over we all adjourned to the room which Mr. Trelawny had set aside as his study, his bedroom being close to it.  As we entered, the first thing I noticed was a great safe, somewhat similar to that which stood in his room in London.  When we were in the room Mr. Trelawny went over to the table, and, taking out his pocket-book, laid it on the table.  As he did so he pressed down on it with the palm of his hand.  A strange pallor came over his face.  With fingers that trembled he opened the book, saying as he did so: 

“Its bulk does not seem the same; I hope nothing has happened!”

All three of us men crowded round close.  Margaret alone remained calm; she stood erect and silent, and still as a statue.  She had a far-away look in her eyes, as though she did not either know or care what was going on around her.

With a despairing gesture Trelawny threw open the pouch of the pocket-book wherein he had placed the Jewel of Seven Stars.  As he sank down on the chair which stood close to him, he said in a hoarse voice: 

“My God! it is gone.  Without it the Great Experiment can come to nothing!”

His words seemed to wake Margaret from her introspective mood.  An agonised spasm swept her face; but almost on the instant she was calm.  She almost smiled as she said: 

“You may have left it in your room, Father.  Perhaps it has fallen out of the pocket-book whilst you were changing.”  Without a word we all hurried into the next room through the open door between the study and the bedroom.  And then a sudden calm fell on us like a cloud of fear.

There! on the table, lay the Jewel of Seven Stars, shining and sparkling with lurid light, as though each of the seven points of each the seven stars gleamed through blood!

Timidly we each looked behind us, and then at each other.  Margaret was now like the rest of us.  She had lost her statuesque calm.  All the introspective rigidity had gone from her; and she clasped her hands together till the knuckles were white.

Without a word Mr. Trelawny raised the Jewel, and hurried with it into the next room.  As quietly as he could he opened the door of the safe with the key fastened to his wrist and placed the Jewel within.  When the heavy doors were closed and locked he seemed to breathe more freely.

Somehow this episode, though a disturbing one in many ways, seemed to bring us back to our old selves.  Since we had left London we had all been overstrained; and this was a sort of relief.  Another step in our strange enterprise had been effected.

The change back was more marked in Margaret than in any of us.  Perhaps it was that she was a woman, whilst we were men; perhaps it was that she was younger than the rest; perhaps both reasons were effective, each in its own way.  At any rate the change was there, and I was happier than I had been through the long journey.  All her buoyancy, her tenderness, her deep feeling seemed to shine forth once more; now and again as her father’s eyes rested on her, his face seemed to light up.