"Taken when?" he rejoined, looking her full in the face--as a guilty man would scarcely dare to look. "Then; or within a few minutes of that time. When Lady Sarah came up from dinner it was not there. She came up almost immediately." "Who took it?" he repeated, not yet recovering his surprise. "I don't know," she faintly said. "It was under my charge. No one else was there." "You do not wish me to understand that _you_ are suspected?" he burst forth with genuine feeling. "Their unjust meanness cannot have gone that length!" "I trust not, but I am very unhappy. It is true I left the room when you did, but I only lingered outside on the stairs, watching--if I may tell the truth--whether you got out safely, and then I returned to it. Yet when Lady Sarah came up from dinner it was gone." "And did no one else go into the room?" he repeated. "Did Selina? I met her at the door, and sent her upstairs." "She went in for a minute. But she would not touch the jewels, Gerard." "Of course not. She counts as ourselves in this. The bracelet was in the room when I left it----" "You are sure of that?" interrupted Alice. "I am. When I reached the door, I turned round to take a last look at you, and the diamonds of that particular bracelet gleamed at me from its place on the table." "Oh, Gerard! Is this the truth?" "It is the truth, on my sacred word of honour," he replied, looking at her agitated face and wondering at her words. "Why else should I say it? Good-bye, Alice; I cannot stay another moment, for there's somebody yonder I don't want to meet." He was off like a shot. But his words and manner had conveyed a conviction of innocence to the mind of Alice, just as those of her sister had done. She stood still, looking after him in her dreamy wonder, and was jostled by the passers-by, mentally asking herself _which_ of the two was the real delinquent? One of them it must have been. CHAPTER XVII. DRIVEN INTO EXILE. Colonel Hope was striding about his library with impatient steps. He wore a wadded dressing-gown, handsome once, but remarkably shabby now, and he wrapped it closely around him, though the heat of the weather was intense. But Colonel Hope, large as were his coffers, never spent upon himself a superfluous farthing, especially in the way of personal adornment; and Colonel Hope would not have felt too warm cased in sheepskins, for he had spent the best part of his life in India, and was, besides, of a chilly nature. That same afternoon he had been made acquainted with the unpleasant transaction which had occurred in his house the past evening. The household termed it a mystery; he, a scandalous robbery: and he had written forthwith to the nearest chief police-station, demanding that an officer might be despatched back with the messenger, to investigate it. So there he was, waiting for their return in impatient expectation, and occasionally halting before the window, to look out on the busy London world.