She didn’t stay long after dinner. I don’t think I sat ten minutes with the major--and it was a dull ten minutes, and no mistake. There was nothing light and airy about him. He asked me about Chicago (which he pronounced “Chick-ago”), and said he had heard there was good sport in the Rocky Mountains, and thought of going there to hunt the Great Auk. I didn’t know what the Great Auk was, and I asked him. He looked blankly at me, and said he believed a “large form of bird,” which surprised me, as I had an idea it was a preadamite beast, like a behemoth. I was glad to have the major go, not only because he was so dull, but because I was so dying to find out from Daisy if she’d placed them and who they were. They were hardly on the steps and the front door shut on them before I was back in the parlor. “Who are they, for heavens’ sake?” I burst out. She shook her head, laughing a little, and looking utterly bewildered. “My dear boy,” she said, “I haven’t the least idea. It’s the most extraordinary thing I ever knew.” “Isn’t there anything about them you remember? Didn’t they say something that gave you a clew?” “Not a word, and yet they seem to know me so well. The queerest thing of all was that, when you were in the dining-room with the man, the woman, in the most confidential tone, began to ask me about some one called Amelia. It was _too_ dreadful! I hadn’t the faintest notion what she meant.” “What did you say? I’ll lay ten to one you were equal to it.” “I realized it was desperate, and, after going through the dinner so creditably, I wasn’t going to break down over the coffee. She said: ‘How about poor Amelia?’ I knew by that ‘poor’ and by the expression of her face it was something unusual and queer. I thought a minute, and then looked as solemn as I could, and answered: ‘Really, the subject is a very painful one to me. I’d rather not talk about it.’” We both roared. It was so like Daisy to be ready that way! “And then--this is the strangest part of all--she put her hand in the front of her dress and drew out some little thing of chamois leather, and told me to give it to Amelia from her. I tried to stop her, but it was too late. She put it here in the crystal bowl.” Daisy went to the bowl, and took out a little limp sack of chamois leather. “It feels like pebbles,” she said, pinching it. And then she opened it and shook the “pebbles” into her hand. I bent down to look at them, my head close to hers. The palm of her hand was covered with small, sparkling crystals of different sizes and very bright. We looked at them, and then at one another. They were diamonds! For a moment we didn’t either of us say anything. Daisy had been laughing, and her laugh died away into a sort of scared giggle. Her hand began to shake a little, and it made the diamonds send out gleams in all directions. “What--what--does it mean?” she said, in a low sort of gasp.