There was but one lamp lighted in the hall at Cedar Range, and that was turned low, but there was light enough to satisfy Clavering, who stood beneath it with Hetty's maid close beside him and a little red leather case in his hand. The girl's eyes were eager, but they were fixed upon the case and not the man, who had seen the keenness in them and was not displeased. Clavering had met other women in whom cupidity was at least as strong as vanity. "Now I wonder if you can guess what is inside there, and who it is for," he said. The maid drew a trifle nearer, stooping slightly over the man's hand, and she probably knew that the trace of shyness, which was not all assumed, became her. She was also distinctly conscious that the pose she fell into displayed effectively a prettily rounded figure. "Something for Miss Torrance?" she said. Clavering's laugh was, as his companion noticed, not quite spontaneous. "No," he said. "I guess you know as well as I do that Miss Torrance would not take anything of this kind from me. She has plenty of them already." The maid knew this was a fact, for she had occasionally spent a delightful half-hour adorning herself with Hetty's jewellery. "Well," she said, with a little tremor of anticipation in her voice, "what is inside it?" Clavering laid the case in her hand. "It is yours," he said. "Just press that spring." It was done, and she gasped as a gleam of gold and a coloured gleam met her eyes. "My!" she said. "They're real--and it's for me?" Clavering smiled a little, and taking her fingers lightly closed them on the case. "Of course," he said. "Well, you're pleased with it?" The sparkle in the girl's eyes and the little flush in her face was plain enough, but the man's soft laugh was perfectly genuine. It was scarcely a gift he had made her; but while he expected that the outlay upon the trinket would be repaid him, he could be generous when it suited him, and was quite aware that a less costly lure would have served his purpose equally. He also knew when it was advisable to offer something more tasteful than the obtrusive dollar. "Oh," said the girl, "it's just lovely!" Clavering, who had discretion, did not look round, but, though he kept his dark eyes on his companion's face, he listened carefully. He could hear the wind outside, and the crackle of the stove, but nothing else, and knew that the footsteps of anyone approaching would ring tolerably distinctly down the corridor behind the hall. He also remembered that the big door nearest them was shut. "Well," he said, "it wouldn't do to put anything that wasn't pretty on a neck like that, and I wonder if you would let me fix it."