But it was not a dagger, or any other murderous implement, she observed, after winking away the first dazzle; only the quivering brilliance of diamonds and sapphires glancing and dancing in Agatha's hands. It was, in fact, the necklace shown to her in the firelight on that wet afternoon, the improvised history of which had fallen on such sceptical ears—the necklace of doubtful origin but undoubted value that this mysterious and secretive young woman had asked her to sell for her. Why had she not asked the Anarchist in the first place, she wondered, or could he be the unlawful acquirer of that shining treasure? Had he suggested or commanded the making a cat's-paw of her? But, from the way in which he took and looked at the jewels, it seemed that they were new to him. He held them in this light and that, pushing the spectacles up to his forehead to examine them more closely, weighing them thoughtfully in his hand, and exchanging remarks upon them with Agatha, who presently took the necklace back, and held it this way and that, as if discussing its value. Finally, she clasped it round her neck over her white blouse, as she had done by the fire that day, with the same air of using herself to show off the jewels, and looked absently across the blue bloom of the ravine to the high mountains, while the Anarchist, thoughtfully stroking his beard, and with his goggles pushed up under his hat-brim, contemplated the necklace gem by gem, but not the wearer, evidently appraising the beauty and value of each sparkling drop and pendant as it flashed and quivered in the sun.
Then he turned and paced the grassy terrace, while Agatha took off the necklace and laid all the shining splendour carefully in its velvet bed, and again looked absently and sadly away across the blue bloom of distance to the mountain peaks. Then the Anarchist came back, said a few words, took the morocco case, and put it away in an inner breast-pocket, at the same time handing her a paper, which she read with interest and anxiety, and returned to him with a sigh and a look of relief. He held her hand a moment, then, saying something that made her turn her head away to hide tears, that Ermengarde saw sparkling in the sunshine, he sprang up the turf-banked terrace where it was a little broken, walked across the grass under the olives, and disappeared on the other side, where a steep path led by the olive-dresser's cottage and wound down the precipitous ridge-side to the high-road by the torrent-bed.
He could not have gone far down the steep, when he was seen emerging upon the olive-shadowed plateau once more, and hastily stepping back across it and down the bank to the woman of mystery, who was evidently more surprised than pleased at this return. Saying something quickly, he took out the morocco case, and, after some reluctance and apparent objection on her part, placed it in her hands, pointed, to Ermengarde's horror, towards her hiding-place, again climbed the terrace bank, hurried across the path, and vanished down the steep; while Agatha, after a short pause, as of indecision, suddenly seemed to become resolute, put the case in her pocket, turned and dashed quickly, almost at a run, straight along the terrace towards Ermengarde, who gave herself up for lost.
But before she could collect her senses sufficiently to decide whether to lie back and pretend to be asleep or get up and seem to be just emerging from the wood behind her, Agatha had flashed by like a whirlwind, her skirts brushing Ermengarde's feet, looking straight ahead and in too great a hurry to see what lay on the rosemary-bank behind the myrtle.
Then Ermengarde, petrified with amazement, got up and went back to the path over the ridge, remembering that the way taken by the woman of mystery through the wood was shorter than the mule-track along the ridge, so that there was no fear, unless she went at a much greater rate than Agatha, of overtaking her and leading her to suppose that she had been in the olive-garden during the interview.
She therefore walked slowly back along the mule-path, meditating upon the mysterious and nefarious proceedings of her young friend, and alternately blaming herself for watching the interview, and wondering what it meant, and congratulating herself on having accidentally been the witness of what justified her suspicions about that necklace, and reached the gate of the hotel just in time to see that same Agatha and Mr. Mosson coming out from a path on the wooded convent steep in earnest colloquy.
There was no reason why two of the hotel visitors should or should not be walking in the monastery grounds at the same time; but, as the descent by the hotel gate was very abrupt and much tangled by interlacing roots of pine-trees, there was every reason why Mr. Mosson, even if, instead of being a benefactor to his species, he had been a misanthrope (and from the grim set of his jaw and hard eyes, and thin, tight-drawn mouth, Ermengarde was inclined to think him that), should hand Miss Somers carefully over the snaky roots and crumbling ledges, as he did with the greatest politeness and deference, standing aside with raised hat to let her pass into the grounds before him, and on perceiving Ermengarde's approach from the opposite direction, extending the same courtesy to her. And yet the juxtaposition of these two seemed to confirm her suspicions concerning Agatha and stamp her with double intrigue. Was Mr. Mosson a suppositious uncle of Agatha's?—an aunt he clearly could not be—so she debated, walking by necessity at this suspicious young woman's side through the garden paths.
"Have you been up the ridge?" asked Agatha, with cheeks flushed and eyes over bright.
"I came back through the olives, so pleasant and peaceful," replied Ermengarde, observing a tremor in her companion's voice, and wondering what had been the last experience of the necklace. "And you?"
"I have been up by the monastery," she said. "Bordighera is very beautiful to-day: an indescribable peacock blue bloom upon it."