“‘The opals, yes. Opals always made me happy, you know. While I wore one, I felt a friend was near. My father found these in Hungary, and sent them to me--two perfect jewels. He said they were the twin halves of a single stone. I believe it to be true. Their mutual relation is an odd one. One has paled as the other brightened. You see them now. When they were both mine, they were of almost equal brilliancy. This,’ touching the paler, ‘is the one I gave to her. You see the difference in them now. Hers began to pale before she had worn it a month. I do not try to explain it, not even on the ground of the old superstition. It was not her fault that they made her send it back to me. But the fact remains; her opal is fading slowly; mine is burning to a deeper red. Some day hers will be frozen quite, while mine--mine--’ his voice wavered and fell on silence, as the flame of a candle fighting against the wind flickers and goes out. “I waited many minutes for him to speak again, but the silence was unbroken. At last I rose. ‘Surely you did not mean to part with either stone?’ I said. “He looked up as if from a dream. ‘Part with them? Why should I sell my soul? I would not part with them if I were starving. I had a minute’s temptation, but that is past now.’ Then, with a change of manner, ‘You are going?’ He rose with a gesture that I felt then and still feel as a benediction. ‘Good-by. I wish for your own sake that you had not been so like my poor self that I knew you for a friend.’ “We had exchanged cards, but I did not see or hear of him again. Last week these stones came to me, sent by some one here in New York of his own name--his executor. He is dead, and left me these. “It is here that I want your counsel. These stones do not belong to me, you know. It is true that we are like, as like as blue and violet. But there is that woman somewhere--I don’t know where; and I know no more of their story than he told me. I have not cared to be curious regarding it or him. But they loved once, and these belong to her. Do you suppose they would be a comfort or a curse to her? If--if--” the connoisseur evidently found difficulty in stating his position. “Of course I do not mean to say that I believe one of the stones waned while the other grew more brilliant. I simply say nothing of it; but I know that he believed it, and I, even I, feel a superstition about it. I do not want the light in that stone to go out; or if it should, or could, I do not want to see it. And, besides, if I were a woman, and that man had loved me so, I should wish those opals.” Here Hayden looked up and caught Langworthy’s amused, tolerant smile. He stopped, and there was almost a flush upon his cheek.