"My good Madgin, do you know what it is to hate?" demanded Lady Pollexfen. "To hate with a hatred that dwarfs all other passions of the soul, and makes them pigmies by comparison? If you know this, you know the feeling with which I regard M. Platzoff. If you want the key to the feeling, you have it in the fact that his accursed hands robbed my dead son: even then you must have a mother's heart to feel all that I feel." She paused for a moment as if to recover breath; then she resumed. "See you, Mr. Solomon Madgin, I have a conviction, an intuition, call it what you will, that this Russian scoundrel is still alive. That is the first fact you have got to find out. The next is, where he is now residing. Then you will have to ascertain whether he has the diamond still in his possession, and if so, by what means it can be recovered. Only recover it for me--I ask not how or by what means--only put into my hands the diamond that was stolen off my son's breast as he lay dead; and the day you do that, my good Madgin, I will present you with a cheque for five thousand pounds!" Mr. Madgin sat like one astounded; the power of reply seemed taken from him. "Go now," said Lady Pollexfen, after a few moments. "Ordinary business is out of the question today. Go home and carefully digest what I have just said to you. That you are a man of resources, I know well; had you not been so, I would not have employed you in this matter. Come to me to-morrow, next day, next week--when you like; only don't come barren of ideas; don't come without a plan, likely or unlikely, of some sort of a campaign." Mr. Madgin rose and swept his papers mechanically into his bag. "Your ladyship said five thousand pounds, if I mistake not?" he stammered out. "A cheque for five thousand pounds shall be yours on the day you bring me the diamond. Is not my word sufficient, or do you wish to have it under bond and seal?" she asked with some hauteur. "Your ladyship's word is an all-sufficient bond," answered Mr. Madgin, with sweet humility. He paused with the handle of the door in his hand. "Supposing I were to see my way to carry out your ladyship's wishes in this respect," he said deferentially, "or even to carry out a portion of them only, still it could not be done without expense--not without considerable expense, maybe." "I give you carte-blanche as regards expenses," said her ladyship with decision. Then Mr. Madgin gave a farewell duck of the head, and went. He took his way homeward through the park, like a man walking in his sleep. With wide-open eyes, and hat well set on the back of his head, with his blue bag in one hand, and his umbrella under his arm, he trudged onward, even after he got into the busy streets of the little town, without seeing anything or anybody. What he saw, he saw introspectively. On the one hand glittered the tempting bait held out by Lady Pollexfen; on the other loomed the dark problem that had to be solved before he could call the golden apple his.