"It's very ugly also, my lady," answered Hughes, in a lofty tone, "and I'm thankful to the presiding genuses which rules such things, that I was not in charge when it happened. Though maybe, if I had been, it never would have took place, for I can give a guess how it was." "Then you had better give it," said her mistress, curtly. "If I do," returned Hughes, "I may offend Miss Seaton." "No, you will not, Hughes," said Alice. "Say what you please: I have need to wish this cleared up." "Well, ma'am, if I may speak my thoughts, I think you must have left the key about. And we have strange servants in the house, as my lady knows. There's a kitchen-maid that only entered it when we came up; and there's the new under-butler." "Hughes, you are wrong," interrupted Alice. "The servants could not have touched the box, for the key was never out of my possession, and you know the lock is a Bramah. I locked the box last night in her ladyship's presence, and the key was not out of my pocket afterwards, until you took it from there this morning." "The key seems to have had nothing to do with it," interposed Frances. "Alice says she put the diamond bracelet on the table with the rest; Lady Sarah says when she went to the table after dinner the bracelet was not there. Were you in the room all the while, Alice?" "Not quite. Very nearly. But no one could possibly have gone in without my seeing them. The folding-doors were open." "It is quite a mystery," cried Lady Sarah. "It beats conjuring, my lady," said Hughes. "Did any visitor come upstairs, I wonder?" "I did hear a visitor's knock while we were at dinner," said Lady Sarah. "Don't you remember, Fanny You looked up as if you noticed it." "Did I?" answered Lady Frances, in a careless tone. At that moment Thomas happened to enter with a letter; and his mistress put the question to him: Who had knocked? "Sir George Danvers, my lady," was the ready answer. "When I said the colonel was at dinner, Sir George began to apologize for calling; but I explained that you were dining earlier than usual, because of the opera." "No one else called?" "Nobody knocked but Sir George, my lady." "A covert answer," thought Alice. "But I am glad he is true to Gerard." "What an untruth!" thought Lady Frances, as she remembered hearing of the visit of Alice's sister: "Thomas's memory must be short." In point of fact, Thomas knew nothing of it.