"Why, my father himself, Mr. Headland. I remember when he brought the wretched stone back and fixed it up in a steel-lined case, of which the top was glass. He had a kind of mimic altar made—you shall see it for yourself—on which the case was put. No one but my dear stepmother knew how the stone was put into its pedestal. No one but my father had ever touched it, and after the priest died I don't believe even he did so with his bare hands."
"H'm. I see! And did Lady Montelet believe in the priest's curse or not?"
"Not at first—not, in fact, till after that poor maid of ours died last year. She accidentally let her broomhandle fall through the glass top of the case and whether she did touch the stone or not, or whether it was, as our doctor said, that she died of fright, her heart having been known to be weak, one can't say. But she was found dead. Then, six months later, a young orphaned French girl from a Russian convent, Celestine Merode—— Why, what's the matter?"
"Celestine! A convent!" Cleek ejaculated. "The two things are so utterly incongruous!"
"Why, did you know her?" asked the young man in natural bewilderment.
"Know her! Yes, she was the sister of one of the worst scoundrels that ever formed a unit of the Apaches."
"The Apaches!" gasped young Montelet. "Good heavens! But she came with the very finest credentials, to act as companion for my stepmother. She was a dear girl, and it nearly broke my mother's heart when she, too, was found dead. Lady Montelet has a penchant for French companions, and her present one, Marie Vaudrot, who has been with her ever since, is also French. She was vouched for by a Countess Somebody or other, and she has been like a daughter to my mother.... Oh! it is too, too awful!" he burst out, fiercely. "First my dear, dear father——"
"Good heavens!" burst out Mr. Narkom. "Did he too, die mysteriously? I understood that he died from pneumonia."
"So he did," was the low-toned reply; "but on the night of his death he eluded the nurse while she slept, and we—my mother and I—found him lying in front of the altar. The glass was removed, leaving the stone exposed. He must have touched it—and he had died...." His voice trailed away into silence, and a wave of emotion surged over him, choking him. Suddenly he swung round with an intense desperation in his face and voice. "Help me, Mr. Headland! Let me avenge these deaths. The stone I care nothing for. Thank Heaven it is gone, that no more murders may be committed for its sake. Help me to avenge the woman who was more than a mother to me—the best, the truest that ever lived! If I could have done anything in this world to have saved her, but I couldn't, I couldn't! Nothing on earth could save her."