The Argosy — page 79: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

66 Lady Ennerdale’s Fewels. Before the three minutes had expired he was back again. The Countess, sitting in a dejected attitude before the fire, did not look up as he entered. He crossed the room to her and bent over the back of her chair. ‘* You said just now that you would never wear a diamond necklace again. Will you refuse to wear this one ?” She looked up, startled. There was a moment’s silence, and then she gave vent to an inarticulate cry of surprise and delight. She could hardly credit the evidence of her eyes. There, before her, in the old, worn, well-remembered case, she saw the diamond necklace and the emerald bracelet of which she had been robbed a year ago that night. “Oh, my darling, what does it all mean ?” she contrived to gasp out. “Tt means that your jewels have come back to you as mysteriously as they went. Let us hope that you will know how to take better care of them in time to come.” “Then the thieves have been caught, and a “The thief stands before you. I am that felonious individual.” “You, James? Oh!” “Yes, I.” Taking the necklace out of its case, he clasped it round his wife’s neck, then he drew up a chair and sat down opposite to her. “You are dying for an explanation ?” he said. “Tam indeed.” She could not resist standing up and glancing at herself for a moment in the glass over the chimney-piece. Then she sat down again with a sigh of supreme satisfaction. ‘After I had finished myletters that evening,” began the Earl, “‘I went into your dressing-room to ask you a question. You were not there.” “T had gone down to Mrs. Dawson for a cup of tea,” loieehigatd Lady Ennerdale. ‘Very probably, my dear,” returned the Earl drily. ‘As I say, you were not there; neither was Piper, but on the dressing-table was your jewel-case ready for anyone to pocket who might choose to do so. To say that I was not annoyed would not be to state the truth. All at once it came into my head that I would try to commit an amateur burglary and carry off the casket in order to prove to you how easily it might have been stolen in reality. While out in the morning, I had noticed a ladder resting against a wall near the tool- house which it seemed to me would answer my purpose. When I got out into the shrubbery not a creature was about. The night was a very cold one and a light snow was falling. Five minutes later I had climbed the ladder, pushed open the window of your dressing-room, and had made myself master of your jewel-case. Nothing could be more easy.” ‘“ Good gracious! James, however dared you do such a thing?” “ Having got possession of the case, I walked through the bed-room into my own dressing-room, unlocked my big travelling-trunk, popped the case into it, relocked the trunk, and went back by the way I came, that is to say, through the window and down the ladder. I was EORNIELOOOKS .E©