Carrie rose, with a determined expression in her face. "Well, I must go down," she said. "Charley will be here in a few minutes. I see the teams coming back from the sloos." Eveline Annersly sat thoughtfully still. The jewels in question were, she knew, of considerable value. For that very reason, she was far from sure that Carrie could ever have the good-will of anybody at Barrock-holme if she insisted on her rights of possession. CHAPTER XXI A WILLING SACRIFICE Three weeks had slipped away since the evening Carrie Leland had asked about her mother's jewels, when she and Eveline Annersly once more referred to them as they sat in her room, a little before the supper hour. The window was wide open, and the blaze of sunlight that streamed in fell upon Carrie as she took up a letter from the little table before her. "Only a line or two to say the casket has been sent," she said, with a half-suppressed sigh. "One could almost fancy they did not care what had become of me at Barrock-holme. I might have passed out of their lives altogether." "I'm not sure it's so very unusual in the case of a married woman," said her companion, a trifle drily. "Besides, it is quite possible that your father was not exactly pleased at having to give the jewels up. In fact, it may have been particularly inconvenient for him to do so. They are worth a good deal of money." "Still, they really belong to me." "Yes," said Eveline Annersly, "they evidently do, or you would not have got them. Of course, it would be a more usual thing for them to have gone to Jimmy's wife when he married, but they were your mother's, and, as you know, they came from her family. It was her wish that you should have them, though I was never quite sure it was mentioned in her will. In fact, to be candid, I am a little astonished that you have got them." Carrie's face flushed. "Aunt," she said, "I don't like to think of it, and I would not admit it to anybody else, but I felt what you are suggesting when I wrote for them. Still, I would have had them, even at the cost of breaking with them all at Barrock-holme." "I expected a break. Hadn't you better open the casket?" "In a few minutes," said Carrie, leaving the room. She wore a dinner-gown when she returned. Sitting down at the table, she opened the little metal-bound box before her. There was an inner box, and, when she opened that in turn, the sunlight struck a blaze of colour from the contents of the little velvet trays. Carrie looked at them with a curious softness in her eyes. When she turned to her companion, however, there was a lingering wistfulness in her smile. "I can't resist putting them on--just this once," she said. "I shall probably never do it again."