"Violet!" The Countess of Cantyre came dashing into Miss Forster's bedroom--the word "dashing" fairly describes her method of entry. "I have been robbed." Miss Forster was in bed, though very far from asleep, or even inclined to slumber. She had been borne upstairs in the carrying chair, her foot had been bathed and bandaged by sympathetic hands, and she had been placed between the sheets. She was given stern injunctions that she was on no account to move; the doctor would be sent for at the earliest reasonable hour, and until his arrival she was not to move. But when her ladyship made that announcement, she sat up immediately. "Margaret, you don't mean it?" "Don't tell me that I don't mean it when I know that I do. I went straight to my room when I left you----" "That's only ten minutes ago." "The first thing I saw when I entered my room was my jewel-case lying on the floor. I had clean forgotten all about what Rupert had said till I saw it; really, I am not sure that I quite believe the stories that those other women have been telling; but when I saw it--there, of all places--of course, I dashed at it and--Violet, it was open, and it was empty; practically all the Avonham jewels have been walked off with." Her ladyship, flouncing down on to a chair, presented quite a charming picture of feminine agitation. "So Rupert is right?" "Of course he is--that's the worst of it. He seldom is right, but when he is, it is nearly always when it would have been much better if he wasn't. While we were fast asleep in our beds, some dreadful creature must have had the incredible impudence to come into our room, and, under our very noses, walk off with everything. He has taken, from my room alone, nearly a quarter of a million's worth of jewels." "Margaret!" "Oh, it's all very well to say 'Margaret,' but I know he has. And the most maddening part of it is that to a certain extent it's my fault--as I shall be told before I'm very much older. I would have all the jewels out of the bank; between ourselves, I knew the duchess was going to wear her diamonds, and I had heard tales of what other people were going to wear. I've got diamonds as well as other people, and if I didn't wear them I meant to let them know it." "You hadn't them on to-night." "My dear, was it likely? I left that sort of thing to other people. But I meant to have my case down in the morning, and let those other people see what was in it. Talk about the Ditchling diamonds! You've never seen the Avonham diamonds, not the whole lot of them together, but they are--well, now they aren't, because they're stolen. And shan't I hear of it! Cantyre was quite unpleasant when I told him about having them all down here; in fact, he doesn't know that I did have them, and that's another thing. Oh, won't there be things said! I know I shall have to take to my bed for a month; it's only when I take to my bed that Cantyre thinks he's gone too far."