"Burgoyne! Why do you look at me like that?" "I have something here I wish to show you." That was Mr. Burgoyne's greeting. He opened the bag, and turned its contents out upon the table. "Not a bad haul from Breton peasants,--eh?" Mr. Staunton stared at the heap of things thus suddenly disclosed. "Burgoyne," he stammered, "what's the meaning of this?" "Are you quite sure you don't know what it means?" Looking up, Mr. Staunton caught the other's eyes. He seemed to read something there which carried dreadful significance to his brain. His glance fell and he covered his face with his hands. At last he found his voice. "Minnie?" The word was gasped rather than spoken. Mr. Burgoyne's reply was equally brief. "Minnie!" "Good God!" There was silence for perhaps a minute. Then Mr. Burgoyne locked the door of the room and stood before the empty fire-place. "It is by the merest chance that I am not at this moment booked for the _travaux forces_. Some of those jewels were stolen from a woman's dressing case at the Grand Hotel, with the woman herself in bed and more than half awake at the time. She talked about having every guest in the place searched by the police. If she had done so, you would have heard from us as soon as the rules of the prison allowed us to communicate." Mr. Burgoyne paused. Mr. Staunton kept his eyes fixed upon the table. "That's what I wanted to tell you the night before the wedding, only you wouldn't stop. She's a kleptomaniac." Mr. Burgoyne smiled, not gaily. "Do you mean she's a habitual thief?" "It's a disease." "I've no doubt it's a disease. But perhaps you'll be so kind as to accurately define what in the present case you understand by disease." "When she was a toddling child she took things, and secreted them--it's a literal fact. When she got into short frocks she continued to capture everything that caught her eye. When she exchanged them for long ones it was the same. It was not because she wanted the things, because she never attempted to use them when she had them. She just put them somewhere--as a magpie might--and forget their existence. You had only to find out where they were and take them away again, and she was never one whit the wiser. In that direction she's irresponsible--it's a disease in fact." "If it is, as you say, a disease, have you ever had it medically treated?" "She has been under medical treatment her whole life long. I suppose we have consulted half the specialists in England. Our own man, Muir, has given the case his continual attention. He has kept a regular journal, and can give you more light upon the subject than I can. You have no conception what a life-long torture it has been to me." "I have a very clear conception indeed. But don't you think you might have enlightened me upon the matter before?" Rising from his seat, Mr. Staunton began to pace the room