Page:Vance--The false faces.djvu/351

Rh "Because it isn't fair to represent myself as what I am not, mademoiselle. Once a thief, always"

"No! It isn't true!"

"Again I am sorry, but I know. You have been most generous to believe in me. If anything could save me from myself, it would be your confidence. That, I presume, is why I felt called upon to undo my thieving, and make good the loss. The money Colonel Stanistreet paid Ekstrom is now in the safe, back there in the library. The necklace is … here."

Blindly he thrust the tissue packet into her hands.

"If you will consent to return it to its owner, when I have gone, I shall be most grateful."

Her hands shook so that, when she would open the packet, it escaped her grasp and dropped into a little pool of rain-water which had collected in a hollow of the walk. Lanyard picked it up, stripped off the soiled and sodden paper, dried the necklace with his handkerchief, replaced it in her hand.

He heard the deep intake of her breath as she recognized its beauty, then her quavering voice: "You give this back because of me …!"

"Because I cannot be an ingrate. I know no other way to prove how I have prized your faith in me. … And now, with your leave, I will go away quietly by this garden gate"

"No—please, no!"

"But"

"I have more to say to you. It isn't fair of you to go like this, when I"

She interrupted herself, and when next she spoke he