She was sitting in front of the dressing-table, her toilet complete, when she stretched out her hand to the leather case of the diamonds. I was looking at the reflection in the mirror, thinking that she was as perfect as I could make her. She, too, had been looking at the back of her head, and still held the small glass in one hand. The other she reached out for the diamonds. The case had a catch that you had to press, and I saw, to my surprise, that she raised the lid without pressing this. Then she gave a loud exclamation. There were no diamonds there!
She turned round and looked at me, and said:
“How odd! Where are they, Jeffers?”
I felt suddenly as if I was going to fall dead, and afterward, when my lady stood by me and said it was nonsense to suspect me, one of the things she brought up as a proof of my innocence was the color I turned and the way I looked at that moment.
“Jeffers!” she said, suddenly rising up quick out of her chair. And then, without my saying a word, she went white and stood staring at me.
“My lady, my lady,” was all I could falter out, “I don’t know—I don’t know!”
“Where are they, Jeffers? What’s happened to them?”
My voice was all husky like a person’s with a cold, as I stammered:
“They were in the case an hour ago.”
My lady caught me by the arm, and her fingers gripped tight into my flesh.