feel of his pulse.


Three o'clock in the morning.

The man in the Gregor bedroom sat down on the bed, the pocket lamp
dangling from his hairy fingers. Not a nook or cranny in the
apartment had he overlooked. In every cupboard, drawer; in the beds
and under; the trunks; behind the radiators and the pictures; the
shelves and clothes in the closets. What he sought he had not found.

His vengeance would not be complete without those green stones in
his hands. Anna would call from her grave. Pretty little Anna, who
had trusted Stefani Gregor, and gone to her doom.

All these thousands of miles, by hook and crook, by forged passports,
by sums of money, sleepless nights and hungry days - for this! The
last of that branch of the breed out of his reach, and the stones
vanished! A queer superstition had taken lodgment in his brain; he
recognized it now for the first time. The possession of those stones
would be a sign from God to go on. Green stones for bread! Green
stones for bread! The drums of jeopardy! In his hands they would
be talismanic.

But wait! That pretty girl across the way. Supposing he had
intrusted the stones to her? Or hidden them there without her being
aware of it?