"All this talk of diamonds attracted the attention of the listening nurse. She finally stole out of the house, took up the position at the rose arbor and watched what was happening in the sitting-room. While she was doing this, I think young Burton must have gone up-stairs, where he was afterward seen by the maid. From what Fenton has told the police, he was looking in at the sitting-room window when he saw Mary Burton faint. No one was then in the room but the girl and her father; and as the latter bent over her, Fenton saw the door open and the nurse steal into the room, the brass candlestick in her hand. The jewels were upon the table where the Bounder had placed them at the moment his daughter fell. The nurse snatched them up, and as she did so the man turned his head and saw her. He leaped toward her, and she struck him to the floor. Without a moment's hesitation she lifted the window, and dropped the candlestick within two feet of where Fenton was crouched. Then she left the room.
"The sounds made by these happenings are probably what young Burton was listening to at the head of the stairs when the colored maid saw him. And my version of what he did after he descended the stairs you have already heard. The brother thought the sister was the criminal, and when the sister came out of her swoon—I heard her admit as much to her brother this morning when he was released from prison—her mind was burdened with the belief that he was guilty. And so both were silent for each other's sake."
"But Mary's prowling about the house with the candle as I saw her that night?" said Scanlon. "What do you make of that?"
"Mary Burton has a good mind—though she lacks self-assertion. When the jewels were not found upon her father's body, or in the room where he was killed, she realized they had been stolen. But by whom? She knew her brother too well to think he was the thief, and I think from that moment she began to suspect the nurse. Once, as a report of one of my men states, as the nurse left the house secretly and with a veil over her face, Mary was seen at a window, the curtain partly drawn aside, looking after her. I think her going about through the rooms with the candle was an effort to locate the possible hiding place of the diamonds."
Nora gave a deep sigh.
"Poor thing! And to think how very brave she was."
"Well," and Ashton-Kirk showed unmistakable signs of going, "I suppose their troubles from that source, at least, are over."
Nora arose and held out her hand.
"That it is," she said, "is due to you. And I thank you for the peace you have brought to us all."
Ashton-Kirk released the hand after a moment.