how much he might hate to let it go, he must show the blue diamond ring to Mr. Ruthven Smith and have its identity decided.
The girl drew a long breath, and determined to put the subject out of her mind until after dinner, so that Sir Elmer Cartwright need not think her a complete idiot.
But the deep sigh that stirred her bosom stirred also the fine gold chain on which hung the blue diamond. The chain lay loosely on her shoulders, lost, or almost lost among soft folds of lace. She wore it like that with a low dress, not only to prevent it from attracting attention and making people wonder what ornament she hid, but also because the thin band of gold, if seen, would break the symmetry of line. It was Knight who had given her this little piece of advice, the first time after their marriage that she had dined with him in evening dress, and since then she had never forgotten to follow it.
To-night, however, feeling suddenly conscious of the chain, she was on the point of looking down to make sure that it was shrouded in her laces. Something stopped her. With a quick warning thump of the heart she glanced across at Ruthven Smith.
A few minutes ago he had not been wearing his eyeglasses. Now they were on, pinching the high-bridged, thin nose. And he was peering through them at her—peering at her neck, her dress, as if he searched for something.
Ruthven Smith knew about the blue diamond. He knew that she wore it on a chain, hidden in her dress. The certainty of this shot through brain and body like forked lightning and seemed to sear her flesh. She was afraid. She could not tell yet of what she was afraid, but when she could disentangle her twisted thoughts one from another the reason would be clear.
Then it was as if her mind separated itself from the rest of her and began to run back along the path she had travelled with Knight since the hour of their first meeting. It ran looking on the ground, seeking and picking up things dropped and almost forgotten.
Knight had not been pleased when the Countess de Santiago talked to him of their being together on the Monarchic. The Countess had seemed wishful to annoy him in some way. She had taken that way. They had known each other well and for a long time. They knew a good deal about each other's affairs. Sometimes one would say that the Countess still liked to annoy Knight, and he resented that. He had been unwilling to have her asked to Valley House for Easter, though he knew she longed to come.
And Ruthven Smith! Knight had not wanted him. Could it possibly be on account of the blue diamond? Had Knight heard what she had heard there at the dinner-table, and was he anxious about what might happen next?
Hastily she flung a glance toward her husband. He was not looking at her, but it seemed—perhaps she imagined it—that his face had something of the same tense, strained expression she had caught on Charrington's.
How odd, if it were true, that both should have that look. One would almost fancy they shared a secret trouble. But Annesley shook the idea away, as she would have shaken a hornet trying to sting. How dare she let such a disloyal fancy even cross the threshold of her mind? A secret between her husband and his servant—a secret concerning the blue diamond, which stabbed them both with the same prick of anxiety at the mention of the jewel!
No sooner was the venomous thing dislodged than it crept back and settled close over her heart. For Knight's eyes turned to her, and in them was the look of a drowning man.
Just for the fraction of a second she saw it. Then the curtain was drawn over his real self that had come to the window and signalled for help. He smiled a friendly smile, and took up the conversation with his right-hand neighbour. But he had hidden his soul too late. The message could not be taken back, and Annesley was sure that he, too, had heard the story Ruthven Smith had told so loudly to Lady Cartwright.
The fact that he had lost his unruffled, nonchalant coolness even for a single instant warned Annesley that Knight must be desperately troubled.
"He bought the diamond for me, knowing what it was," she told herself, "and knowing that it must have been stolen. Of course that's why he made me wear it where nobody could see. But who else knew besides the man who sold it to Knight? Somebody must have known, and told Mr. Ruthven Smith. Perhaps the thief himself, hoping to be spared, and to get money from both sides. That is why Mr. Ruthven Smith accepted the invitation here, which I was so sure he would refuse. He has come because he thinks the Malindore diamond is in this house. That must be it! But how can he have found out that I am wearing it?"
As she thought these things, asking herself questions, sometimes answering them, sometimes unable to answer, she managed to keep up some desultory talk first with one of her neighbours, then with the other. It seemed to take all her strength to do this, and made her feel weak and broken, not excited and vital, as she had felt on the wonderful night at the Savoy when "Nelson Smith" had praised her pluck and presence of mind in saving him from a danger which had never been explained.
How she wished with all her anxious, troubled heart that she knew how to save him to-night!
It had been very wrong to buy a stolen diamond, but he had done it from no mercenary motives, for he had given it to her. She supposed that he had loved the beautiful thing, and felt when it was offered to him that he could not bear to let it go.... Perhaps the Countess de Santiago had stolen it on the Monarchic! That might be a cruel thought, but Annesley could not help having it, for it would explain many things.
Besides, it would help to exonerate Knight. He was very chivalrous where women were concerned, and he would have felt bound to protect his old friend. At all events, he could not have given her up to justice, and very likely she had been in debt and needed money. She had wonderful clothes, and must be extravagant.
Yes, the more Annesley dwelt on the idea the more convinced she became that Madalena de Santiago had stolen the blue diamond, and perhaps all the other things on the Monarchic, while pretending to have a vision in her crystal of the thief, and of the way the jewel had been smuggled off the ship. Then the Countess had been angry with Knight, and had tried to have him suspected, even of being mixed up in the theft—though that last idea seemed too far-fetched.
"How hateful, how mean of her!" Annesley thought, ashamed because it was so easy to believe bad things of the Countess, and to pile up one upon another. "Probably she put it into Constance's head to suggest having Mr. Ruthven Smith asked. And then she put it into his head to—to——"
The girl stopped short, appalled. What had been put into the jewel expert's head? What precisely had he come to Valley House to do?
"He has come to find the blue diamond!" the answer flashed into her brain.
Madalena de Santiago's eyes were as piercing as they were beautiful. She might have noticed the fine gold chain which her "pal's" wife wore always round her neck. She might have guessed that the ring with the blue diamond was hidden at the end of the chain; yet she could not know for certain, because Knight would never have told her that.
Therefore it followed that neither could Ruthven Smith know for certain. He meant to find out, and if he did find out, Knight would be punished far more severely than he deserved for buying a thing illegally come by.
"I will save him again," Annesley resolved.
But how? What might she expect to happen? And whatever it was, how could she prevent it happening?
Chapter XVIII.
The Star Sapphire
Picture after picture grew and faded in her mind. She saw policemen coming to the house; she saw Ruthven Smith demanding that she and Knight be searched, and arrested if the diamond were found.
It might be difficult to prove that they had had nothing to do with the theft, especially as Knight had been on board the Monarchic. He must have travelled under his own name then, the name that he had not let her see when he wrote it in the register after the wedding. If Ruthven Smith knew about the Monarchic and the change