“I shouldn’t, if I were you, Miss Fincastle,” Cecil remarked, with calm and studied blindness. “It’s risky here in the evenings--with these canals exhaling miasma and mosquitoes and bracelets and all sorts of things.” “I will take the risk, thank you,” said Eve, in an icy tone, and she haughtily departed; she would not cower before Cecil’s millions. As for Cecil, he joined in the discussion of the theory of doubles. III. On the next afternoon but one, policemen were still fishing, without success, for the bracelet, and raising from the ancient duct long-buried odours which threatened to destroy the inhabitants of the quay. (When Kitty Sartorius had hinted that perhaps the authorities might see their way to drawing off the water from the canal, the authorities had intimated that the death-rate of Bruges was already as high as convenient.) Nevertheless, though nothing had happened, the situation had somehow developed, and in such a manner that the bracelet itself was in danger of being partially forgotten; and of all places in Bruges, the situation had developed on the top of the renowned Belfry which dominates the Grande Place in particular and the city in general. The summit of the Belfry is three hundred and fifty feet high, and it is reached by four hundred and two winding stone steps, each a separate menace to life and limb. Eve Fincastle had climbed those steps alone, perhaps in quest of the view at the top, perhaps in quest of spiritual calm. She had not been leaning over the parapet more than a minute before Cecil Thorold had appeared, his field-glasses slung over his shoulder. They had begun to talk a little, but nervously and only in snatches. The wind blew free up there among the forty-eight bells, but the social atmosphere was oppressive. “The Count is a most charming man,” Eve was saying, as if in defence of the Count. “He is,” said Cecil; “I agree with you.” “Oh, no, you don’t, Mr. Thorold! Oh, no, you don’t!” Then there was a pause, and the twain looked down upon Bruges, with its venerable streets, its grass-grown squares, its waterways, and its innumerable monuments, spread out maplike beneath them in the mellow October sunshine. Citizens passed along the thoroughfare in the semblance of tiny dwarfs. “If you didn’t hate him,” said Eve, “you wouldn’t behave as you do.” “How do I behave, then?” Eve schooled her voice to an imitation of jocularity-- “All Tuesday evening, and all day yesterday, you couldn’t leave them alone. You know you couldn’t.” Five minutes later the conversation had shifted. “You actually saw the bracelet fall into the canal?” said Cecil. “I actually saw the bracelet fall into the canal. And no one could have got it out while Kitty and I were away, because we weren’t away half a minute.” But they could not dismiss the subject of the Count, and presently he was again the topic.