"What do mean?" the daughter cries, indignantly, springing to her feet.
"I mean that you will never see Leslie Noble or your jewels again. It was all a plot to rob you of them. He has taken them for Vera, whom he has abducted and hidden away in obscurity."
"He denies the charge, mamma. He believes with Mr. Gilbert that Vera has run away herself. But my jewels—oh, mamma, do you really believe he would rob me of them? Let us go down to the jeweler's and bring them back at once," exclaims Ivy, in feverish terror.
"I will go with you, but I doubt if we shall find them there. He would no doubt take them away on some clever pretext as soon as he left you. Oh, how foolish you were to trust that villain's exaggerated repentance."
"Let us go," Ivy answers, with feverish energy, tying on her bonnet, and hurrying her mother from the room.
The sequel proved Mrs. Cleveland right.
Leslie Noble had already taken away the jewels on the shallow pretext of his wife's change of mind. Poor Ivy was driven back to her lodgings, this time in real genuine hysterics.
[CHAPTER XLIV.]
"This is no time for hysterics, Ivy," Mrs. Cleveland tells her daughter sharply. "You would do better to rally your strength and calmness, and consider what you are to do to get back your jewels."