“Not? Robbery, then, probably. Well, she came back at a stride. Her eyes were alive with anger. There came a torrent of words from her; strong words, too. Nothing of the well-bred woman left there. I insisted on knowing who she was, and she burst out on me with laughter that was, somehow, more insulting than her speech. But when I told her that I’d find out about her if I had to follow her into the sea, she stopped laughing fast enough. Before I could guard myself she had caught up a rock from the road and let me have it. I went over like a tenpin. When I got up, she was well along toward the cliffs, and I never did find her trail in that maze of copses and thickets.” “Show me your relative positions when she attacked you.” The artist placed Kent, and moved off five paces. “About like that,” he said. “Did she throw overhand or underhand?” “It was so quick I hardly know. But I should say a short overhand snap. It came hard enough!” “I do not like it at all,” said Kent again. He wandered disconsolately and with half-closed eyes about the room, until he blundered into collision with a cot-lounge in the corner, spread with cushions. These he heaped up, threw his coat over them, stretched himself out with his feet propped high on the mound just erected, and closed his eyes. “Sleepy?” inquired Sedgwick. “Busy,” retorted his guest. “Like some more pillows?” “No; I’d like ten minutes of silence.” The speaker opened one eye. “At the end of that time perhaps you’ll think better of it.” “Of what?” “Of concealing an essentially important part of your experience, which has to do, I think, with the jewelry.” At the end of the ten minutes, when Kent opened both eyes, his friend forestalled him with another query. “You say that no jewels were found on the body. Was there any other mark of identification?” “If there was, the sheriff got away with it before I saw it.” “How can you be sure, then, that the dead woman was my visitor?” “Dennett mentioned a necklace. On the crushed flesh of the dead woman’s neck there is the plain impress of a jewel setting. Now, come, Sedgwick! If I’m to help you in this, you must help me. Had you ever seen that necklace before?” “Yes,” was the reply, given with obvious reluctance. “Where?” “On the neck of the girl of my picture.” Kent’s fingers went to his ear, pulling at the lobe until that unoffending pendant stretched like rubber. “You’re sure?” he asked. “There couldn’t be any mistake. The stones were matched rose-topazes; you mightn’t find another like it in the whole country.” Kent whistled, soft and long. “I’m afraid, my boy,” he said at length, “I’m very much afraid that you’ll have to tell me the whole story of the romance of the pictured face; and this time without reservation.” “That’s what I’ve been guarding against,” retorted the other. “It isn’t a thing that I can tell, man to man. Don’t you understand? Or,” he added savagely, “do you misunderstand?”