I attempted to speak. She lifted her hand impatiently, and stopped me.

In the rapid alternations of her temper, her anger was beginning to rise

again. She got up from her chair, and approached me.

"I know what you are going to say," she went on. "You are going to

remind me again that you never received my letter. I can tell you why. I

tore it up.

"For what reason?" I asked.

"For the best of reasons. I preferred tearing it up to throwing it away

upon such a man as you! What was the first news that reached me in the

morning? Just as my little plan was complete, what did I hear? I heard

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that you--you!!!--were the foremost person in the house in fetching the

police. You were the active man; you were the leader; you were working

harder than any of them to recover the jewel! You even carried your

audacity far enough to ask to speak to ME about the loss of the

Diamond--the Diamond which you yourself had stolen; the Diamond which

was all the time in your own hands! After that proof of your horrible

falseness and cunning, I tore up my letter. But even then--even when I

was maddened by the searching and questioning of the policeman, whom

you had sent in--even then, there was some infatuation in my mind which

wouldn't let me give you up. I said to myself, 'He has played his vile

farce before everybody else in the house. Let me try if he can play it

before me.' Somebody told me you were on the terrace. I went down to

the terrace. I forced myself to look at you; I forced myself to speak to

you. Have you forgotten what I said?"

I might have answered that I remembered every word of it. But what

purpose, at that moment, would the answer have served?

How could I tell her that what she had said had astonished me, had

distressed me, had suggested to me that she was in a state of dangerous

nervous excitement, had even roused a moment's doubt in my mind whether

the loss of the jewel was as much a mystery to her as to the rest of

us--but had never once given me so much as a glimpse at the truth?

Without the shadow of a proof to produce in vindication of my innocence,

how could I persuade her that I knew no more than the veriest stranger

could have known of what was really in her thoughts when she spoke to me

on the terrace?

"It may suit your convenience to forget; it suits my convenience to

remember," she went on. "I know what I said--for I considered it with

myself, before I said it. I gave you one opportunity after another

of owning the truth. I left nothing unsaid that I COULD say--short of

actually telling you that I knew you had committed the theft. And

all the return you made, was to look at me with your vile pretence of

astonishment, and your false face of innocence--just as you have looked

at me to-day; just as you are looking at me now! I left you, that

morning, knowing you at last for what you were--for what you are--as

base a wretch as ever walked the earth!"




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