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Rh motives make you resolved to keep the emerald. For you understand, of course, Mr. Hereford, that I consider you to have interfered in an affair which concerns only myself in a manner uncalled for and unwarranted even by your trusteeship in my estate. I hope you also understand that my only reason for coming here was to clear my conscience of blame for your fate; and that is fully cleared now, since you have forced me to lower myself to apologize and request in order to mock at me."

He frowned perplexedly. Had she really come here, as she had said, only to make plain his peril to him? Or had she come, as he all along had thought, to scare from him—if he had it—the stone, the loss of which was endangering her defiant plan?

"If I thought—" he began hesitatingly.