Rosabelle, watching her uncle keenly, saw a hard look come over his face, a look which she knew denoted displeasure not unmixed with suspicion. What could have caused it? Was it possible he suspected anything? Of course, she knew nothing of the anonymous letter. He said no more, however, and the small party trooped out to the waiting car. But something in his wife’s manner had not satisfied him, and he was now on the watch. Two days after, husband and wife were to attend a big dinner-party. In the afternoon when he came home he went into Mrs. Morrice’s boudoir, where she and Rosabelle were sitting together. “Oh, Lettice, I only just wanted to say I wish you particularly to wear the ‘birthday’ pearls to-night.” Rosabelle looked up, just a little startled. His tone was not quite so hard as it had been the other night, but it was certainly not his ordinary one. She turned her glance rather anxiously to her aunt. But Mrs. Morrice seemed perfectly at her ease, as she answered: “Certainly, Rupert, if you wish it, although I think they are just a little overpowering for to-night.” So she came down in the “birthday” pearls when it was time to start and Rosabelle, who did not accompany them, was very relieved. Whatever suspicions her uncle had formed, he would be free of them now. But that was just what Morrice was not. Subtly influenced by the anonymous letter, he thought he had noticed an evasiveness in his wife’s manner on the night of the ducal entertainment when she had given her reasons for not wearing her most valuable necklace. There was only one way in which he could be satisfied, and that way he was going to take as soon as he could find an opportunity. When he once took a thing in hand, he never rested till he got to the bottom of it, being of a determined, not to say a dogged nature. The opportunity came one morning when Mrs. Morrice started early to lunch with an old friend, living some forty miles out of London. Her maid had been given a holiday till five o’clock, the hour at which her mistress proposed to return, for she was a very kind and considerate employer and frequently showed these small kindnesses to her servants. The coast was clear. He went upstairs to her dressing-room. The more valuable articles were kept in a safe which had once been used by him, and of which he possessed a duplicate key, unknown to his wife. Quickly he took the pearl necklace in its case, and put it in a small bag which he had brought up with him for the purpose, then went downstairs, feeling in his honest and upright heart, rather like a thief himself. But, as a matter of fact, he could not rest till he had convincingly tested the truth of that anonymous letter.