It had been stolen--by whom I could not guess. I sat down after my fruitless search, trembling and too much frightened to cry. For there is something alarming in a mysterious loss like that, an uncomfortable sense of being at the mercy of some unknown power, apart from the certainty that one of the people about you is a thief. At first I thought I would go to Lady Mills and tell her privately all about it; but my courage failed me; for if my loss got known there would be an unpleasant scene for all the servants and a sense of discomfort in the entire household; besides, several of the servants in the house were those of the guests, and not under Lady Mills’s authority. It was just as likely that my pendant had been taken by one of them; and everybody would be indignant at the idea of his or her servant being suspected of the theft. So I resolved to say nothing about it, but to bear my loss, which I felt more than I should have thought possible, in silence. After all, if I could never wear it without exciting more attention than I cared for, and surprising people by my possession of an ornament which they persisted in thinking extremely valuable, it was better that it should have disappeared. I began to think it had already had an unwholesome effect upon me, by my secret wish to wear it again. So I went downstairs to dinner with a piece of plain black velvet round my throat, told Mrs. Cunningham, who asked why I did not wear my pendant, that I had come to the conclusion that it was too handsome an ornament for a girl in my position, and heard Mr. Carruthers say that the same remark would apply to my eyes. It was a fine night, not cold, though there was a light breeze; and after dinner some of us went into the garden, and I among them, for I was afraid they would make me play the waltzes again, although it was Sunday. One of the gentlemen did say-- “Let us ask Miss Christie to play for us.” But the lady he spoke to replied, in a rather offended tone-- “We need not always trouble Miss Christie; and I am sure she would rather not be disturbed. I just tried the waltzes over this morning, and they are quite easy.” “Just tried ’em over!” muttered Mr. Cole, who was standing by me in the conservatory. “She was hard at it hammering at the piano all church-time.” It was late in the evening when Mr. Carruthers, who had been in the billiard-room with some of the others, came out and sauntered, with a cigar in his mouth, up to the grape-house, where I was standing with Sir Jonas, who had taken a fancy to me and insisted on cutting me some grapes straight from the vine. “Lady Mills wishes me to say that Miss Christie will get her death of cold if she comes out of the hot-house into the cold air with nothing round her shoulders,” said Mr. Carruthers, when we were at the door. “Bless me--so she will! Fetch her a shawl, Tom.”