"Yes," he said.
She lifted the rope over her head and thrust it, against his will, into his hands. "Make any test you wish, and decide whether these are the pearls you gave me or an imitation."
Hardly knowing what he did, he walked to a table, on which stood a tall lamp that gave a brilliant light. Beverley watched him. There was no emotion whatever on her face. After a moment he spoke: "These are genuine pearls," he admitted, after a heavy silence. "And I have reason to believe from certain marks that they are the pearls I bought for you, the queen's pearls. If you give me your word, that since I put them into your hands you did not part with them to Justin O'Reilly, as I have believed, I will beg your forgiveness on the knees of my soul. I will confess to you—as I once expected you to confess to me."
"Hush! There's someone at the door!" Beverley cut him short.
It was Léontine who knocked, and paused on the threshold. "Will Madame have the kindness to step into the hall," she asked. As her mistress moved toward her, she retired, and it was not until they both stood at some distance from the door that the Frenchwoman spoke.
"I beg Madame's pardon for disturbing her," she apologized, "but I dare not delay. The lady, Mees Blackburne, if that is her name, was about to start back to town, but remembered a commission she had been given at the apartment; to bring a telegram for me. I opened it, to find that for me there is no sense. I know no Stephen; but——"
"Stephen!" Beverley gasped the name, and snatched from the woman's hand an open telegram she held. She read it, and then without a word or cry, collapsed in a dead faint. With a shriek of fear Léontine tried to catch the swaying figure; but the best she could do was to break the fall. When Roger reached the door it was to find Beverley in a white heap on the floor with the Frenchwoman kneeling by her side. He caught his wife up, and, carrying her back into his room, laid her on the bed.
"Let everybody be told that dinner will be delayed half an hour," he said, and shut the door in Léontine's face. She snatched the dropped telegram and whisked off to obey the master's command.