“‘Garrison laid the diamond trinket gently back on the desk and puffed slowly at his cigar. Presently he turned with disconcerting abruptness to Mrs. Staniford. “There is no possibility of mistake?” he asked. “None,” was the firm reply. “You could swear to the identity of this jewel in court?” “Yes.” Garrison whipped a small round, black object from his pocket and settled it against his eye. Then he took up the trinket again and bent over it closely. “My dear madam,” he said softly, “if you did that you would be making a grave mistake.” “What do you mean?” she cried fiercely. “I mean,” was the smiling response, “that this is not one of your jewels,――unless――――” “Well?” she prompted impatiently. “Unless, my dear madam, you wear paste!” A sharp involuntary exclamation of surprise startled them. They turned quickly. Lord Burslem was crossing the library with white, set face.’ “Pshaw! I knew all along the things were paste,” sighed Ethan. “Singleton is Mrs. Staniford’s son by a former marriage and she has pinched the stones and given them to him to get him out of a scrape, something to do with that lachrymose Miss Deene, maybe; at least, something she knows about. Laurence is as innocent as the untrodden snow, or whatever the correct simile is, and if I keep on to the last chapter I’ll find out that fact. But I prefer to believe him guilty. He wore a gardenia in his buttonhole, and that settles it. I can’t stand for a man who wears gardenias. I insist that he is guilty.” He tossed the book half-way across the room, arose, stretched his long arms above his head and stared out of the window. The rain was falling straight down from the dark sky in a manner that would doubtless have pleased Isaac Newton greatly, showing as it did so perfectly the attraction of gravitation. The drops were of immense size, and when one struck the window pane it spread itself out into a very pool before it trickled down to the sash. Ethan watched for awhile, then yawned, glanced at his watch and lounged in to dinner. About three o’clock the sky lightened somewhat and the torrential downpour gave way to a quiet drizzle. He donned a raincoat and sought the road. It was not bad walking, for the surface was well drained, and he had put three-quarters of a mile behind him before he had considered either distance or destination. Then, looking around and finding the highway lined on the right by an ornamental iron fence through which shrubs thrust their wet leaves, he smiled and shrugged his shoulders. “I didn’t mean to come here,” he said to himself, “but now that I’m here I might as well go on and tantalize myself with a look at the house.”