"How can you ask? I was just about to go into the room, as I felt it my right, when, at that very moment, the light was extinguished. I was so surprised at this, that I stood there, uncertain what to do. Then hearing Eric gasp, as if in distress, I pushed the curtain aside and went in. The rest, I have told you." Joyce sat down, and as she did so, a wave of crimson swept over her face. She looked startled, ashamed, as if she had violated a confidence or told a secret, which she now regretted. Barry sat beside her, and he was looking at her curiously. Then the man who had been sent to search for the jewels returned. He reported that he had not been able to find any trace of them, but brought a note he had found on Mr. Stannard's writing desk. Coroner Lamson read the note, and passed it over to Inspector Bardon. Eventually it was read aloud. It ran thus: Goldenheart: You have a strange power over me--you can sway me to your will when I am in your presence. But now, alone, I am my own man and my better self protests at our secret. You know where the jewels are hidden. Take the emeralds, if you like, and forgive and forget Eric. The note fell like a bombshell. Everybody gasped at this revelation of the artist's intrigue with his model. Joyce turned white to her very lips, and Barry flushed scarlet. "Call Miss Vernon," commanded the Coroner, abruptly. Natalie came in, looking lovelier than ever, and quite composed now. Without a word, Lamson handed her the note. The girl read it, and returned it. Except for the trembling of her lip, which she bit in her endeavour to control it, she was calm and self-possessed. "Well?" said the Coroner, as gentle toward her now as he had been fierce before, "what does that note to you mean?" Natalie turned the full gaze of her troubled eyes on him. If her angel face was ever appealing, it was doubly so now, when her drooped mouth and quivering chin told of her desperate distress. "It is not to me," she whispered. "That's right," Bobsy Roberts thought; "stick to that, now. It's fine!" "It was written to you, and left in Mr. Stannard's desk. Where are the emeralds? Where are the other jewels hidden?" "I do not know. I tell you that letter is not mine." "Not yours, because you didn't receive it. But it was written to you, and before it was sent, the writer told you, in so many words, the purport of it here in this very room, and in a rage, you killed him." Natalie stopped her accuser with a gesture of her hand. Her rosy palm lifted in protest, she said, "Why do you believe Mrs. Stannard's story and not mine? What _I_ saw in this room was the jealous wife, cowering in an agony of fear and terror at sight of her own crime."