“Dennis!” said his master again--and the man looked up in his face and said simply: “She was my mother.” Tuke put his hand gently on his shoulder. “I have thought as much. You would not have her removed?” “No, no! Let her lie at peace.” “I think you are right. Such a tomb as this is for the hunted.” A discordant cry echoed through the chamber: “The skull! My God, let me pass!”--and Luvaine, dashing aside the restraining arm, bounded to the furthermost of the stone blocks and snatched something into his hands. He had no respect, no sympathy, no decency even, in the covetous lust of his soul. Perhaps if he had had, the Fates had vouchsafed a kindlier turn to his fortunes. Tuke and Blythewood would not echo his jubilance--would hardly give him their notice, indeed. To them a solemner tragedy appealed--a mystery far profounder than that of humanity’s morbid attraction to coloured pebbles. It was only when a second horrible cry broke from him that they looked round, startled. He was standing with the skull held out before him in one hand. His face was ghastly and contorted; his eyes, in the marionette play of light and shadow, were dancing devils of fury. “It is gone!” he shrieked--“the stone is gone!” Tuke’s very gorge rose. The nerves of his jaw seemed to click rigid. “Dennis,” he said, with a sternness that was only for that other--“forbear your grief a little, my good fellow. For the sake of common decency let us resolve this matter now and at once.” He crossed to Luvaine. “Well, sir,” he said--“you say the stone is gone?” For answer the other held him out the skull. He was so lost in the terror of loss that he would have scarcely resented a blow. Tuke took the ugly relic in his hand, and offered it to his man’s inspection. “Is this,” he said, “the same you gave to your mother? Can you identify it?” “It is the same. There is the bulged eyelid and the chalk-marks yet about it.” “The stone may have dropped out. We can show you no better consideration, Dennis, than to begin and end the search here and now.” Luvaine was on his knees already, diving into and scattering the little heap of bones and implements. He found nothing there; nor could any of them, after the most exhaustive search, discover a trace of the missing gem. The candle on the wall guttered and flared down while they were at work, and Dennis replaced it with another from a little bundle he had brought with him. He had made it one of his duties, it seemed, to supply these to the lonely woman. Suddenly Luvaine rose to his feet with an evil expression of face. “This is trouble thrown away,” he said. “There is one and one only likely place to overhaul.” Dennis cried “No, no!” with an agonized look. “Whimple,” said his master gently--“these are great stakes at issue, and to curtail the search would be to place me at least in a very false position. Let it be done with all reverence, by your hands.”