She scarcely knew what she expected of him, but most assuredly she did not anticipate his next move.
Quite quietly he picked up the jewel-case, and re-entered her room.
"It may as well go among your other treasures," he said. "You needn't wear it—unless you wish—until you have paid me back."
His tone was perfectly ordinary. She wondered what was in his mind, how he regarded her behaviour, why he treated her thus; not guessing that he had set himself resolutely, with infinite patience, to show her how small was her cause for fear.
He laid his hand upon the drawer that contained her trinkets, tried it, turned round to her, faintly smiling.
"May I have the key?"
She had followed him in silence, and now she stood still, The key! The key! It seemed to be searing her flesh, burning through to her very heart. She suddenly felt as if all the Fates were arrayed against her. Why—why—why had she chosen that drawer to guard her secret? Yet how could she have foreseen this? A mist swam before her eyes. Her new-found composure tottered.
"I—have lost it," she murmured.
"Lost it!" he echoed.
"I mean—I mean—" She was stammering now in open confusion—"I must have laid it down somewhere. I—I shall find it again, no doubt."