Tom did well, too--excellently well. When the conversation showed signs of languishing, he began about India. He gave us some strange pieces of information about that distant land that I think he invented on the spur of the moment, and he told several anecdotes which were quite deadly and without point. When they were concluded, he gave a short, deep laugh, let his eye-glass fall out, looked at us one after the other, and said, “What?” I would have enjoyed myself immensely if a sense of heavy uneasiness had not continued to weigh on me. What troubled me was the uncertainty of not knowing whether we really had escaped our pursuers. There was the horrible possibility that they had seen us enter the house, and were waiting to grab us as we came out. If they were there, and I was caught with the diamonds in my possession, it would be a pretty dark outlook for Laura the Lady--so dark I could not bear to picture it, even in thought. As I talked and laughed with my hosts, my mind was turning over every possible means by which I could get rid of the stones before I left the house, trying to think up some way in which I could dispose of them, and yet which would not place them quite beyond reclaiming. I think my nerves had been shaken by that spectral pursuit in the fog. Anyway, I wasn’t willing to risk a second edition of it. We sat over dinner a little more than an hour. It was not yet ten when Mrs. Kennedy and I rose, and with a reminder to Tom that we were to “go to the opera,” I trailed off in advance of my hostess across the hall into the drawing-room. Here we sat down by a little gilt table, and disposed ourselves to endure that dreary period when women have to put up with one another’s society for ten minutes. It was my opportunity of getting rid of the diamonds, and I knew it. We had sipped our coffee for a few minutes, and dodged about with the usual commonplaces, when I suddenly grew grave, and, leaning toward Mrs. Kennedy, said: “Now that we are alone, my dear Mrs. Kennedy, I must ask you about a matter of which I am particularly anxious to hear more.” She looked at me with furtive alarm. I could see she was nerving herself for a grapple with the unknown. “What matter?” she said. I lowered my voice to the key of confidences that are dire if not actually tragic: “How about poor Amelia?” I murmured. She dropped her eyes to her cup, frowning a little. I was thrilling with excitement, waiting to hear what she was going to say. After a moment she lifted her face, perfectly calm and grave, to mine, and said: “Really, the subject is a very painful one to me. I’d rather not talk about it.”