The rich, red gold circlet hung loosely enough, however, on Karine's slim little finger, and a sudden strong desire that she should allow me to look at it caught hold of me.

"Would it be asking too much," I said, "to have the wonderful heirloom in my hand to examine for a moment?"

Without a word she slipped the ring off and gave it to me, almost as though it was a relief to feel its absence.

In a flash a certain recollection had leaped into my mind. There was an inscription inside, Harvey Farnham had told me. If the ring had been cut doubtless the words written within would show some trace of the violent treatment to which the band of gold had been subjected; and I wished, for a reason I hardly dared admit to myself, to ascertain if this were the case.

I moved towards the window and, ostensibly catching the light upon the facets of the matchless stone, peeped into the circlet. To my surprise the words inscribed on the gold were "Kismet and Miss Cunningham." They were absolutely unbroken, not a letter blurred, and the surface of the ring gave the appearance of having been untouched since first it was fashioned. I was certain that it had not been cut. This being so, how had the thing been removed from the finger of its owner?

"You are wondering at the words written inside, aren't you?" Karine asked, coming a little nearer to me. "It does seem extraordinary that they should be there, doesn't it, when you think that the ring was made many years ago, and was not intended for me at all? But--Mr. Wildred has explained the mystery, which is a part of the history of the heirloom, and accounts for his being particularly anxious for me to wear it."

I, too, could have explained the "mystery." I had been told by Farnham that the stone had come from the first diamond mine in which he had been interested. It had been fancifully dubbed "Kismet," and the gold mine, which he had lately sold to Carson Wildred, had (as he had informed me that night of our meeting at the theatre) rejoiced in the name of the "Miss Cunningham." Doubtless the inscription was intended to commemorate the fact that the gold forming the ring had been taken from the one mine, the diamond from the other. But, knowing all this, I was none the less anxious to hear what Karine might have to say.

"It does sound an odd coincidence," I remarked. "Will you tell me the story?"

I had a very specific object in carrying on this conversation; but as for Karine, I could feel that her part of it was sustained merely for the sake of keeping me from treading upon more dangerous ground. Yet despite this nervous anxiety of hers, I could see--or I flattered myself--that she was vaguely surprised and piqued that I should be willing to discuss so trifling a subject during the fleeting moments before Lady Tressidy might be expected to appear.

"You may hear the little romance if you like," the girl said, a faint wistfulness in her sweet voice. "Sixty or seventy years ago, Mr. Wildred tells me, a very dashing ancestor of his fell in love with a Miss Cunningham. That is not a very uncommon name, you know. He was penniless, and she an heiress. Her father would have nothing to do with him, and told him he need not hope to win his daughter unless within a year he could afford to buy her the finest diamond betrothal ring ever seen in the country.

"The lover vowed it was 'Kismet' that he should marry Miss Cunningham, and swore to return and claim her, by slipping such a ring on her finger, exactly twelve months from the day he was sent away.

"He had the most extraordinary adventures in search of a fortune, always ending in failure, until the last month of the appointed time. He was in India, working in the diamond mines, when one day he found this very stone.

"He sailed at once for England, had the ring made, and the words you see engraved inside. As he had said, he arrived on the very day appointed, but only to find the girl coming out from church after her marriage with another man. He threw the ring at her feet, and flung himself away; but at her death it was sent back to him again, and though he never married, he gave it to his brother's bride on her wedding-day. Since then it has remained in the Wildred family."

I could have laughed aloud at this sentimental tale invented by the man (whom I now believed had somehow contrived to steal the jewel) to account for the commonplace words it would have been difficult to erase.

Had I laughed, however, my laughter would have been bitter indeed, ending in an even increased desire to save from him and his trickery the girl I loved.

It is needless to say that I did not laugh, but something of what was in my mind must have been visible on my face, for Karine, as she finished her story, looked up at me searchingly. "What are you hiding from me, Mr. Stanton?" she anxiously questioned. "It is about the ring--and if you are my friend, as you say, you will not keep it a secret from me."

"It _is_ about the ring, Miss Cunningham," I replied impulsively.

"I can't tell you all, for the facts have hardly yet grouped themselves in my own brain. But if they have such bearing upon your happiness as I have some reason to think, you shall know them as soon as I can make them clear to you. Will you trust me meanwhile--will you try to remember that I am striving to collect facts which may help to release you from the necessity for an unworthy marriage? Never for one moment since I saw you last have I let slip the hope of saving you from what you confessed must be a blighted future. Now, I may be mistaken, but I believe that I begin to see my way!"

She looked at the ring, which I had returned to her, with startled, dilating eyes. "Something connected with _this_!" she murmured.

"Yes. It is as if I had placed my eye to that little circlet, looking through it as through a spygla.s.s towards my goal. I shall work after this, Miss Cunningham, as I could not work before, because I have now a fixed starting-point. It may be an intricate tangle that I shall have to unravel, it may be a tedious task, yet----"

"There are only six weeks--_less_ than six weeks to do it in!" she murmured, but a faint colour had sprung to her cheeks, a light of hope to her eyes.

"Is it not possible," I begged, "if I find myself near success, yet stopped temporarily midway by some unforeseen obstacle, that you can delay your marriage? Let me have that to hope for. It will help me to win."

She shook her head sadly, and the rose-flush died.

"It is useless to think of it," she said. "You may imagine, since I have confessed so much to you, that it was not _my_ plan to name such an early date. It was Mr. Wildred who suggested it--indeed, he insisted, and unfortunately he is in a position to insist."

"Has nothing changed since we met at the Savoy?" I hurriedly asked.

"Can't you explain to me the power which you admitted then that this man holds over you?"

"No, _nothing_ is changed, Mr. Stanton! The reason that I cannot explain is--a part of his power, if you like to call it that."

"Heaven knows I do _not_ like it!" I exclaimed, almost savagely.

And as the words fell from my lips Lady Tressidy entered the room. She had finished superintending her packing, and the sight of her was a sudden sharp reminder that next day she would take Karine away.

CHAPTER XIV

An Extra Special

Lady Tressidy was so full of plans for the future--Karine's future with Carson Wildred--that my soul sickened of her chatter, and I took myself off as soon as it was decently possible to do so. With no further chance of private talk with Karine much of my incentive for remaining was gone, at all events, and I was anxious to think out the puzzle regarding the transfer of the ring.

To recapitulate, Farnham had announced his intention of keeping it until the necessity arose for having it cut from his finger. Still, it seemed he had not kept it, and it had not been cut off. The conviction was strong within me that Wildred had obtained the jewel by foul play. Yet how could he have done this, short of severing from the hand the finger that had worn it?

Strange fancies flitted luridly through my brain. In a few days more Harvey Farnham would have landed in New York, and I could reach him there at the hotel he had mentioned as his favourite; or in Denver, Colorado, if he had chosen to pursue his homeward journey without a night's delay.

I counted the hours which must pa.s.s before I could attempt any such communication, and they seemed to rise like a high wall between me and my hopes and my suspicions.

As I walked homeward, involuntarily hastening my footsteps, I heard the newsboys crying out some item of intelligence for the evening papers.

"Extry Speshul! Extry Speshul!" "Mysterious Discovery in the Thames!"

So preoccupied was I that the words pa.s.sed into my ears without making any definite impression on my mind; or, if they did, it was the mere rhythm of the different shouting voices that impressed itself upon me.

So often were they repeated from all sides as I walked on that at length the short sentences began to form a species of intoned accompaniment to my thoughts, without a.s.suming a separate importance in my consciousness.

Suddenly, however, a grimy infant of tender years and appalling precocity flourished a pink sheet, smelling of the printer's ink, directly under my eyes.

"Buy a paper, guv-nor!" he cajoled me. "Hall abeout the 'orrid murder and the 'eadless man."

I seldom read evening papers, and to-night, of all nights, I had little inclination for such irrelevant mental diet. But I flung the child a copper, and found the halfpenny journal thrust into my hand.

I would have tossed it from me carelessly, but the headlines relating to the latest sensation caught my eye.

Then, forgetful of the crowds who stared at me in my agitation, I strode nearer to the white ball of electric light which had shone down upon the page.

CHAPTER XV

A Mystery of the Thames

It was the name, Purley Lock, which had fastened my attention. "Horrible Discovery near Purley Lock!" the headline announced. I read on, rapidly, but thoughtfully. Two boys from Great Marlow had, it seemed, been wandering beside the river bank, between that village and Purley Lock.

Straying along a small backwater, leading out from a larger one, they had noticed a peculiar object caught among a number of reeds. One of the boys had curiously poked at it with his stick, bringing it nearer to the sh.o.r.e, when it appeared to be a heavy, almost formless, ma.s.s sewn up in a rough sack. The boys, being frightened, had run home with their story, and a member of the local police force, going to the spot, had found the children's suspicions confirmed. The unclothed body of a man, partially consumed by fire and lacking the head, as well as otherwise mutilated in a seemingly aimless way, had been doubled up and sewn in the sack.

Weights had evidently been attached to the horrible bundle, but had in some manner become detached. So far no clue whatever, either as to the ident.i.ty of the murdered man, or that of the murderer, had been brought to light. The body had been in the water for some days, but might still have been recognisable had the head not been removed.

The horror of my dream on Christmas Eve came back to me as I read. No doubt there had been many river mysteries and "shocking discoveries" in the Thames, and perhaps I had read of them, dismissing them from my mind with the alacrity with which one does rid one's thoughts of such sordid tragedies, when they do not happen to concern oneself or one's acquaintances. But this tragedy I could not so dismiss.