‘Is she very much upset?’ said the earl.

’Carstairs?  Why, yes, poor creature! you can imagine.  I have no doubt she feels for me; and her own reputation is concerned.  What do you think is best to be done?’

‘To be done!  Overhaul the baggage again in all the rooms.’

‘We’ve not failed to do that.’

’Control yourself, my dear.  If, by bad luck, they’re lost, we can replace them.  The contents of this box, now, we could not replace.  Open it, and judge.’

’I have no curiosity—­forgive me, I beg.  And the servant’s fly has been visited, ransacked inside and out, footmen questioned; we have not left anything we can conceive of undone.  My lord, will you suggest?’

’The intrinsic value of the gems would not be worth—­not worth Aminta’s one beat of the heart.  Upon my word—­not one!’

An amatory knightly compliment breasting her perturbation roused an unwonted spite; and a swift reflection on it startled her with a suspicion.  She cast it behind her.  He could be angler and fish, he would not be cat and mouse.

She said, however, more temperately:  ’It is not the value of the gems.  We are losing precious minutes!’

’Association of them with the giver?  Is it that?  If that has a value for you, he is flattered.’

This betrayed him to the woman waxing as intensely susceptible in all her being as powder to sparks.

‘There is to be no misunderstanding, my lord,’ she said.  ’I like—­ I value my jewels; but—­I am alarmed lest the box should fall into hands —­into strange hands.’

‘The box!’ he exclaimed with an outline of a comic grimace; and, if proved a voluptuary in torturing, he could instance half a dozen points for extenuation:  her charm of person, withheld from him, and to be embraced; her innocent naughtiness; compensation coming to her in excess for a transient infliction of pain.  ‘Your anxiety is about the box?’

‘Yes, the box,’ Aminta said firmly.  ‘It contains—­’

‘No false jewels?  A thief might complain.’

‘It contains letters, my lord.’  ‘Blackmail?’

‘You would be at liberty to read them.  I would rather they were burnt.’

‘Ah!’ The earl heaved his chest prodigiously.  ’Blackmail letters are better in a husband’s hands, if they can be laid there.’

‘If there is a necessity for him to read them—­yes.’

’There may be a necessity, there can’t be a gratification,—­though there are dogs of thick blood that like to scratch their sores,’ he murmured to himself.  ‘You used to show me these declaration epistles.’

‘Not the names.’

‘Not the names—­no!’

’When we had left the country, I showed you why it had been my wish to go.’

’Xarifa was and is female honour.  Take the key, open that box; I will make inquiries.  But, my dear, you guess everything.  Your little box was removed for the bigger impression to be produced by this one.’