Annesley's thoughts raced through her head and would not stop. Knight did not speak. He was waiting with outward patience for her decision. It seemed that she would never know what to say. She was about to tell him in despair that she must have the rest of the day to make up her mind, but before she could speak Parker knocked at the door. "I'll go with you," the girl said, hastily. "On the ship. But after that----" Parker knocked again. "Come in!" called Annesley. "Thank you," Knight said, getting up from his chair near her bed. "_Don't_ thank me. I----" But Parker had opened the door. All that was conventional and agreeably commonplace in the lives of happy, well-to-do people seemed to enter the room with her. CHAPTER XXI THE DEVIL'S ROSARY Ruthven Smith summoned courage to ask for a few words alone with Knight that Easter morning, in order to explain as well as apologize for the "seeming liberty he had taken." By dint of stammering, and punctuating his sentences with short, dry coughs, he made "a clean breast," as he called it, of the "whole business." He had come to Valley House, he confessed, because of an anonymous letter, written apparently by a person of education, to inform him that the Malindore diamond had come into the possession of the Nelson Smiths. Whether they were aware of its identity, the writer was not sure; but in any case their ownership of the jewel was kept secret. Having got so far in his story, Ruthven Smith decided that the easiest way of finishing it would be to produce the letter. He did so (a typewritten sheet of plain creamy paper, in an envelope post-marked "West Hampstead"), and simplified things for himself by pointing to the last sentence. Mrs. Nelson Smith always wears a thin gold chain round her neck, which she lets drop to her shoulders for evening dress. What precious thing which has to be hidden hangs on that chain? Mr. Ruthven Smith is advised to find out. "I see now," the unfortunate man excused himself, "that someone has been taking advantage of my anxiety about the losses of my firm to play a cruel practical joke on me. I can't help thinking, at the same time, that the person must have had a grudge against you and your wife also." "Or else a desire to make mischief between you and us," was Knight's calm suggestion. Ruthven Smith caught it up, eagerly. "Ah, that possibility hadn't occurred to me." "I suppose we all have enemies." Knight pursued the subject without excitement. "The writer probably wished to put the idea in your head that I had deliberately bought an historic diamond which I knew to be stolen." "But that would have been ridiculous!" exclaimed the jewel expert, and felt sincere in making his protest.