want to say something?"

"No, no," I protested, reconsidering my first impulse. Then, as I
met his look, "He can probably tell you that himself. I am sure
he would not hesitate."

"We shall ask him later," was the inspector's response.
"Meanwhile, are you ready to assure me that since that time he
has not intrusted you with a little article to keep--No, no, I do
not mean the diamond," he broke in, in very evident dismay, as I
fell back from him in irrepressible indignation and alarm. "The
diamond--well, we shall look for that later; it is another
article we are in search of now, one which Mr. Durand might very
well have taken in his hand without realizing just what he was
doing. As it is important for us to find this article, and as it
is one he might very naturally have passed over to you when he
found himself in the hall with it in his hand, I have ventured to
ask you if this surmise is correct."

"It is not," I retorted fiercely, glad that I could speak from my
very heart. "He has given me nothing to keep for him. He would
not--"

Why that peculiar look in the inspector's eye? Why did he reach
out for a chair and seat me in it before he took up my
interrupted sentence and finished it?

"--would not give you anything to hold which had belonged to
another woman? Miss Van Arsdale, you do not know men. They do
many things which a young, trusting girl like yourself would