"Not a bit of it. I dined with her a week ago, and so did Ida. Afterwards we went to a bridge drive and Lady Corsoon played furiously. She's a born gambler. But Sir Julius does not know, and never will know, how she pawned his much-prized family jewels."
"I wonder Miss Jewin didn't sell them?"
"She had enough money to live on in a small way, and, of course, lived plainly to avert suspicion. The jewels she kept as a peace-offering in case she should be arrested. She hoped to make terms by threatening to denounce Lady Corsoon. However, her heart failed her, and she handed them over to me."
"Poor woman. By the way, Colonel, what was your wife's real opinion of Miss Hest? I could never quite understand."
Towton was silent for a few minutes. "It is hard to say. Ida told me that she really liked Miss Hest for a long time, and thought that she was a genuine friend. But Miss Hest showed the cloven foot by trying to get Ida married to Maunders, and----"
"Why to Maunders?"
"Because he was under Miss Hest's thumb, and if he obtained possession of Ida's fortune by marriage Miss Hest undoubtedly would have had the spending of it."
"But this marriage to Francis. How could that be when Francis didn't exist?"
"Oh, I think that was a mere blind to make Ida fancy Francis was a real person and not Miss Hest in disguise. I can never understand," added the Colonel with a thoughtful look, "how it was that Ida didn't detect the woman under the man. Women are so quick in these matters."
"It was the very boldness of the disguise," said Vernon emphatically. "I was taken in myself at that Georgian Hall Bazaar. A less clever woman than Miss Hest would have made herself look utterly different to her natural self. As it was, she scarcely changed her looks at all save by wearing a man's dress and painting that cicatrice on her face. Anyone would have said that the supposed brother was the sister dressed up. Such actually was the case, and--well, you know that everyone was taken in. A thousand pities, Colonel, that Miss Hest did not apply her splendid faculties to better purpose. She was undeniably very clever."