"I was the thief! Not she!"
"You--hound!"
"Don't look as though you'd like to murder me! I tell you I feel like murdering you! I am a ruined man. The thought came into my head that if I could get off with those Mitwaterstraand diamonds, I should have something with which to start afresh. Like an idiot, I took them from the case last night, meaning to hatch some cock-and-bull story about having forgotten to bring the case upstairs, and their having been stolen from it in the night. But on reflection I perceived how extremely thin the tale would be. I went downstairs to put them back again. I was in the very act of doing it when you came in. I showed you the empty box. You immediately cried out that your wife had stolen them. It was a temptation straight from hell! I was too astounded at first to understand your meaning. When I did, I let you remain in possession of your belief. Now, Burgoyne, don't you be a fool."
But Mr. Burgoyne was a fool. He fell on to the floor in a fit; this last straw was one too many. When he recovered, Mr. Watson was gone, but the diamonds were there, piled in a neat little heap upon the table. He had been guilty of a really curious lapse into the paths of honesty, for, as he truly said, he was a ruined man. It was one of those resonant smashes which are the sensation of an hour.
Mrs. Burgoyne was released--without a stain upon her character. She never stole again! She had been guilty so many times, and never been accused of crime,--and the first time she was innocent they said she was a thief! Dr. Muir said the shock had done it,--he had said that a shock would do it, all along.
[Exchange is Robbery]
CHAPTER I
"Impossible!"
"Really, Mr. Ruby, I wish you wouldn't say a thing was impossible when I say that it is actually a fact."
Mr. Ruby looked at the Countess of Grinstead, and the Countess of Grinstead looked at him.