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Rh therein, above all things to refrain from painting the Lone Wolf in romantic colours.

She was much too good a sort, too straight, sincere, fair-minded, honest—the sort of girl who deserved the Thackeray sort of man, never a thief.

If she even dreamed. …

Lanyard brought forth from its hiding place the necklace, weighed it in his hand, examined it minutely. Granting its marvellous perfection, he recognized no more its beauty, dispassionately reviewed in turn each stone of matchless loveliness, no more susceptible to their seductive purity, perceiving in them nothing but hard, bright, translucent pebbles, cold, soulless, cruel.

One by one they slipped through his fingers like beads of an unholy rosary.

At length, crushing them together in the hollow of his palm, he stood a while in thought, then turning to his writing-desk bundled the necklace in wrappings of white tissue secured with rubber bands, counted carefully the sheaf of bills he had taken from Ekstrom, sealed the whole amount in a plain, long envelope, and put this aside in company with the necklace.

Already two hours had passed and, since he meant to call at the house on West End Avenue well in advance of the hour when Cecelia Brooke might be there—presuming Blensop to have given her the same appointment as he had given "Mr. Ember," that is, nine o'clock—it was now time to prepare.

Returning to his bedchamber, he laid out a carefully selected change of clothing, shaved, parboiled himself in a hot bath, chilled him to the pith in one of icy coldness,