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was a problem which I strove all night to solve. But the solution came on the morrow.

I soon knew what had happened when I went downstairs. Miss Goodridge had told her story of the pendant, and Mr. Sterndale had circulated his lie about his clerical friend. Everybody shunned me. Some persons had the grace to pretend not to see me; others looked me full in the face and cut me dead. The only persons who were disposed to show any perception of my presence were the Sterndales. As, entering the breakfast-room, I passed their table, they both smiled and nodded, but I showed no consciousness of them. As I took a seat at my own table, I saw him say to his sister:—

"Our young friend seems to have got her back up—little idiot!"

Little idiot, was I? Only yesterday he had called me something else. The feeling that he was saying such things behind my back hurt me more than if he had shouted them to my face. I averted my gaze, keeping my eyes fixed on my plate. I would learn no more of what he said about me, or of what anyone said. I was conscious that life might become unendurable if I were made acquainted with the comments which people were making on me then. Yet, as I sat there with downcast face, might they not construe that as the bearing of a conscience-stricken and guilty wretch? I felt sure that that was what they were doing. But I could not help it; I would not see what they were saying.

Later in the morning matters turned out so that I did see, so that practically I had to see what the Sterndales said to each other. And perhaps, on the whole, it was fortunate for me that I did. I had spent the morning out of doors. On the terrace the Sterndales were standing close together, talking; so engrossed were they by what they were saying that they did not notice me; while, though I did not wish to look at them, something made me. That may seem to be an exaggeration. It is not—it is the truth. My wish was to have nothing more to do with them for ever and ever; but some instinct, which came I know not whence, made me turn my eyes in their direction and see what they were saying. And, as I have already said, it was well for me that I did.

They both seemed to be rather excited. He was speaking quickly and with emphasis.

"I tell you," he was saying, as I paused to watch, "we will do it to-day."

His sister said something which, as she was standing sideways, was lost to me. He replied:—

"The little idiot has cooked her own goose; there's no need for us to waste time in cooking it any more—she's done. I tell you we can strip the house of all it contains, and they'd lock her up for doing it."

Again his sister spoke without, because of her position, giving herself away to me. He went on again:—

"There are only two things in the house worth having—I could give you a catalogue of what everyone has got. Mrs. Anstruther's diamonds—the necklace is first-rate, and the rest of them aren't bad; and that American woman's pearls. Those five ropes of pearls are worth—I hope they'll be worth a good deal to us. The rest of the things you may make a present of to our young friend. The odium will fall on her—you'll see. We shall be able to depart with the only things worth having, at our distinguished leisure, without a stain upon our characters."

He smiled—some people might have thought it a pleasant smile—to me it seemed a horrid one. That smile finished me—it reminded me of the traitor's kiss. I passed into the house still unnoticed, though I do not suppose that if I had been noticed it would have made any difference to them.

What he meant by what he had said I did not clearly understand. The only thing I quite realized was that he was still making sport of me. I also gathered that that was an amusement which he proposed to continue, though just how I did not see. Nor did I grasp the inner meaning of his allusion to Mrs. Anstruther's diamonds and Mrs. Newball's pearls—no doubt it was Mrs. Newball he meant when he spoke of the American woman. The fine jewels of those two ladies, which they aired at every opportunity, were, as I knew perfectly well, the talk of the whole hotel. Probably that was what they meant they should be. When Mrs. Anstruther had diamonds round her neck and on her bosom and in her ears and hair and round her wrists and on her fingers—I myself had seen her wear diamond rings on all the fingers of both hands and two diamond bracelets on each wrist—she was a sight to be remembered; while Mrs. Newball, with her five strings of splendid pearls, which she sometimes wore all together as a necklace and sometimes twisted as bracelets round her wrists, together with a heterogeneous collection of ornaments of all sorts and kinds, made a pretty good second.

Not a person spoke to me the whole of that day. Everyone avoided me in a most ostentatious manner; and everyone, or nearly