I am told that I ought to write something in the way of a conclusion to this account of the Danvers jewels, as if the end of the last chapter were not conclusion enough. Charles, who has just read it, says especially that his character requires what he calls "an elegant finish," and suggests that a slight indication of a young and lovely heiress in connection with himself would give pleasure to the thoughtful reader. But I do not mean at the last moment to depart from the exact truth, and dabble in fiction just to make a suitable conclusion. If I must write something more, I must beg that it will be kept in mind that if further details concerning the robbery are now added against my own judgment, they will rest on Charles's authority—not mine—as anything I afterwards heard was only through Charles, whose information I never consider reliable in the least degree.

It was not till three months later that I saw him again, on a wet April afternoon. I was still living in London with Jane when he came to see me, having just returned from a long tour abroad with Ralph.

Sir George, he said, was quite well again, but the coolness between himself and his father had dropped almost to freezing-point since it had come to light that he had been innocent after all. His father could not forgive his son for putting him in the wrong.

"I seldom disappoint him in matters of this kind," he said. "Indeed, I may say I have, as a rule, surpassed his expectations, and I must be careful never to fall short of them in this way again. But ah! Miss Middleton, I am sure you will agree with me how difficult it is to preserve an even course without relaxing a little at times."

"My dear Mr. Charles," said Jane, beaming at him over her knitting, but not quite taking him in the manner he intended, "you are young yet, but don't be downhearted. I am sure by your face that as you grow older these deviations, which you so properly regret, will grow fewer and fewer, until, as life goes on, they will gradually cease altogether."

"I consider it not improbable myself," said Charles, with a faint smile, and he changed the conversation. I really cannot put down here all that he proceeded to say in the most cold-blooded manner concerning Carr and Aurelia, or as he would call them, Mr. and Mrs. Brown, alias Sinclair, alias Tibbits. I for one don't believe a word of it; and I don't see how he could have found it all out, as he said he had, through the police, and people of that kind. I don't consider it is at all respectable consorting with the police in that way; but then Charles never was respectable, as I told Jane after he left, arousing excited feelings on her part which made me regret having mentioned it.

According to him, Carr, who had never been seen or heard of since the day after the accident, was a professional thief, who had probably gone to —— in India with the express design of obtaining possession of Sir John's jewels, which had, till near the time of his death, been safely stowed away in a bank in Calcutta. He and his wife usually worked together; but on this occasion she had, by means of her engaging manners and youthful appearance, struck up an acquaintance abroad with Lady Mary Cunningham, who, it will be remembered, had jewels of considerable value, with a view to those jewels. Ralph she had used as her tool, and engaged herself to him in the expectation that on her return to England she might, by means of her intimacy with the family, have an opportunity of taking them—Lady Mary having left them, while abroad, with her banker in London. The opportunity came while she was at Stoke Moreton; but in the mean while Sir John's priceless legacy had arrived, having eluded her husband's vigilance. (That certainly was true. The jewels were safe enough as long as I had anything to do with them.) Her husband, who followed them, saw that he was suspected, and threw the game into her hands, devoting himself entirely to putting his own innocence beyond a doubt; in which, with Ralph's assistance, he succeeded.

"I see now," continued Charles, "why she spilled her tea when Carr arrived. She was taken by surprise on seeing him enter the room, having had, probably, no idea that he was the friend whom you had telegraphed for. I suspect, too, that same evening, after the ball, when she and Carr went together to find the bag, it was to have a last word to enable them to play into each other's hands, being aware, if I remember rightly, that father had gone to bed in company with the key of the safe, and that, consequently, the jewels might be left within easier reach than usual. No doubt she weighed the matter in her own mind, and decided to give up all thought of Lady Mary's jewels, and to secure those which were ten times their value. She could not have taken both without drawing suspicion upon herself. Like a wise woman she left the smaller, and went in for the larger prize; a less clever one would have tried for both, and have failed. She failed, it is true, by an oversight. She could never have noticed that the piece of paper wrapped round the crescent was peculiar in any way, or she would not have left it on the table among the others. She turned it off well when Evelyn recognized it, and made the most of her time. She was within an ace of success, but fate was against her. And Carr lost no time, either, for that matter; for I have since found out that the telegram she sent was to Birmingham, where he was no doubt hiding, bidding him meet her in London earlier than had been arranged. Of course he set off for the scene of the accident directly he heard of it, having received no further communication from her. We arrived only ten minutes before him. For my part, I admired her more than I ever did before, when the truth about her came out. I considered her to be a pink-and-white nonentity, without an idea beyond a neat adjustment of pearl-powder, and then found that she possessed brains enough to outwit two minds of no mean calibre, namely, yours, Middleton, and my own. Evelyn was the only person who had the slightest suspicion of her, and that hardly amounted to more than an instinct, for she owned that she had no reason to show for it."

"I wonder Lady Mary was so completely taken in by her to start with," I said.

"I don't," replied Charles. "I have even heard of elderly men being taken in by young ones. Besides, suspicious people are always liable to distrust their own nearest relatives, especially their prepossessing nephews, and then lay themselves open to be taken in by entire strangers. She wanted to get Ralph married, and she took a fancy to this girl, who was laying herself out to be taken a fancy to. In short, she trusted to her own judgment, and it failed her, as usual. I wrote very kindly to her from abroad, telling her how sincerely I sympathized with her in her distress at finding how entirely her judgment had been at fault, how lamentably she had been deceived from first to last, and how much trouble she had been the innocent means of bringing on the family. I have had no reply. Dear Aunt Mary! That reminds me that she is in London now; and I think a call from me, and a personal expression of sympathy, might give her pleasure." And he rose to take his leave.

I had let Charles go without contradicting a word he had said, because, unfortunately, I was not in a position to do so. As I have said before, I am not given to suspecting a friend, even though appearances may be against him; and I still believed in Carr's innocence, though I must own that I was sorry that he never answered any of the numerous letters I wrote to him, or ever came to see me in London, as I had particularly asked him to do. Of course I did not believe that he was married to Aurelia, for it was only on the word of a stranger and a police-inspector, while I knew from his own lips that he was engaged to a countrywoman of his own. However, be that how it may, my own rooted conviction at the time, which has remained unshaken ever since, is that in some way he became aware that he was unjustly suspected, and being, like all Americans, of a sensitive nature, he retired to his native land. Anyhow, I have never seen or heard anything of him since. I am aware that Jane holds a different opinion, but then Charles had prejudiced her against him—so much so that it has ended by becoming a subject on which we do not converse together.

I saw Charles again a few months later on a sultry night in July. I was leaving town the next day to be present at Ralph's wedding, and Jane and I were talking it over towards ten o'clock, the first cool time in the day, when he walked in. He looked pale and jaded as he sat down wearily by us at the open window and stroked the cat, which was taking the air on the sill. He said that he felt the heat, and he certainly look very much knocked up. I do not feel heat myself, I am glad to say.

"I am going abroad to-morrow," he said, after a few remarks on other subjects. "It is not merely a question of pleasure, though I shall be glad to be out of London; but I have of late become an object of such increasing interest to those who possess my autograph that I have decided on taking change of air for a time."

"Do you mean to say you are not going down to Stoke Moreton for Ralph's wedding?" I exclaimed. "I thought we should have travelled together, as we once did six months ago."

"I can't go," said Charles, almost sharply. "I have told Ralph so."

"I am sure he will be very much disappointed, and Evelyn too; and the wedding being from her uncle's house, as she has no home of her own, will make your absence all the more marked."

"It must be marked, then; but the young people will survive it, and Aunt Mary will be thankful. She has not spoken to me since I made that little call upon her in the spring. When I pass her carriage in the Row she looks the other way."

"I am glad Ralph has consoled himself," I said. "A good and charming woman like Evelyn, and a nice steady fellow like Ralph, are bound to be happy together."

"Yes," said Charles, "I suppose they are. She deserves to be happy. She always liked Ralph, and he is a good fellow. The model young men make all the running nowadays. In novels the good woman always marries the scapegrace, but it does not seem to be the case in real life."

"Anyhow, not in this instance," I remarked, cheerfully.

"No, not in this instance, as you so justly observe," he replied, with a passing gleam of amusement in his restless, tired eyes. "And now," producing a small packet, "as I am not going myself, I want to give my wedding-present to the bride into your charge. Perhaps you will take it down to-morrow, and give it into her own hands, with my best wishes."

"Might we see it first?" said Jane, with all a woman's curiosity, evidently scenting a jewel-case from afar.

Charles unwrapped a small morocco case, and, touching a spring, showed the diamond crescent, beautifully reset and polished, blazing on its red satin couch.

"Ralph said I should have it, and he sent it me some time since," he said, turning it in his hand; "but it seems a pity to fritter it away in paying bills; and," in a lower tone, "I should like to give it to Evelyn. I hear she has refused to wear any of Sir John's jewels on her wedding-day, but perhaps, if you were to ask her—she and I are old friends—she might make an exception in favor of the crescent."

And she did.

The End.