Her voice had broken with very joy; her hand trembled pitifully during its momentary repose in his.
"You have never shown up, you see," said he. "I have been in the next compartment all the way from Paris."
"The next compartment on which side?"
He jerked his head at his own reflection in the looking-glass door.
"But there was a priest in there!" cried the girl.
"There was the high priest of a new religion in which you'll never believe any more," said Dollar with a wry smile. "May he sit down for a minute, Lady Vera?"
She looked at him with cooling eyes. "Certainly, Doctor Dollar, if it makes an explanation any easier."
"I didn't intend to explain at all," he had the nerve to tell her. "I meant my ecclesiastical body to do that for me—but its wig was blown out of the window on the other side of Genoa. I've been hanging about all day in the hope of catching you. I couldn't leave it any longer. I had to give you these."
And he placed upon the table between them the diamond necklace and pendant, the string of pearls, and the handful of rings she had been wearing in the night.
"You made him give them up!" she cried, in thankful tears that never fell, but only softened and sweetened her indescribably.