“Yes,” he said, and to my astonishment he drew a small leather pouch from his pocket and laid it on my blanket-covered knees. “How many diamonds were there?” he asked.
“One hundred and three,” I replied, incredulously, and opened the leather pouch. Inside was a bag of chamois-skin. This I stretched wide and emptied.
Scores of little balls of tissue-paper rolled out on the blanket over my knees; I opened one; it contained a 96 diamond; I opened another, another, and another; diamonds lay blazing on my blanket, a whole handful, glittering in undimmed splendor.
“Count them,” murmured Buckhurst, fashioning the paper box into a fly-trap with a lid.
With a quick movement I swept them into my hands, then one by one dropped the stones while I counted aloud one hundred and two diamonds. The one hundred and third jewel was, of course, safely in Paris.
When I had a second time finished the enumeration I leaned back in my chair, utterly at a loss to account for this man or for what he had done. As far as I could see there was no logic in it, nothing demonstrated, nothing proven. To me—and I am not either suspicious or obstinate by nature—Buckhurst was still an unrepentant thief and a dangerous one.
I could see in him absolutely nothing of the fanatic, of the generous, feather-headed devotee, nothing of the hasty disciple or the impulsive martyr. In my eyes he continued to be the passionless master-criminal, the cold, slow-eyed source of hidden evil, the designer of an intricate and viewless intrigue against the state.
His head remained bent over the paper toy in his hands. Was his hair gray with age or excesses, or was it only colorless like the rest of his exterior?
“Restitution is not expiation,” he said, sadly, without looking up. “I loved the cause; I love it still; I practised deception, and I am here to ask this gentle lady to forgive me for an unworthy yet unselfish use of her money and her hospitality. If she can pardon me I welcome whatever punishment may be meted out.”
The Countess dropped her elbow on the arm of my chair and rested her face in her hand.