Anna shook hands with her, and the man drove on, Lettice sobbing aloud. Not hearing Anna's footsteps, I looked round and saw she had sat down on one of the benches, though it was white with frost. I went back. "Don't you go and catch cold, Anna." "Johnny, you cannot think how this is troubling _me_." "Why you--in particular?" "Well--for one thing I can't believe that she is guilty. I have always liked Lettice." "So did we at Dyke Manor. But if she is not guilty, who is?" "I don't know, Johnny," she continued, her eyes taking a thoughtful, far-off look. "What I cannot help thinking, is this--though I feel half ashamed to say it. Several visitors were in the house last night; suppose one should have found her way into the room, and taken them? If so, how cruel this must be on Lettice Lane." "Sophie Chalk suggested the same thing to me to-day. But a visitor would not do such a thing. Fancy a lady stealing jewels!" "The open box might prove a strong temptation. People do things in such moments, Johnny, that they would fly from at other times." "Sophie said that too. You have been talking together." "I have not exchanged a word with Sophie Chalk on the subject. The ideas might occur naturally to any of us." I did not think it at all likely to have been a visitor. How should a visitor know there was an open jewel-box in Miss Deveen's room? The chamber, too, was an inner one, and therefore not liable to be entered accidentally. To get to it you had to go through Miss Cattledon's. "The room is not easy of access, you know, Anna." "Not very. But it might be reached." "I say, are you saying this for any purpose?" She turned round and looked at me rather sharply. "Yes. Because I do not believe it was Lettice Lane." "Was it Miss Cattledon herself, Anna? I have heard of such curious things. Her eyes took a greedy look to-day when they rested on the jewels." As if the suggestion frightened her--and I hardly know how I came to whisper it--Anna started up, and ran across the lawn, never looking back or stopping until she reached the house. XIV. AT MISS DEVEEN'S. The table was between us as we stood in the dining-room at Dyke Manor--I and Mrs. Todhetley--and on it lay a three-cornered article of soft geranium-coloured wool, which she called a "fichu." I had my great coat on my arm ready for travelling, for I was going up to London on a visit to Miss Deveen. It was Easter now. Soon after the trouble, caused by the loss of the emerald studs at Whitney Hall in January, the party had dispersed. Sophie Chalk returned to London; Tod and I came home; Miss Deveen was going to Bath. The studs had not been traced--had never been heard of since; and Lettice Lane, after a short stay in disgrace at her mother's cottage, had suddenly disappeared. Of course there were not wanting people to affirm that she had gone off to her favourite land of promise, Australia, carrying the studs with her.