"That you are a petty thief?"

"Ah! you are cruel--you have no pity! You judge me as you judge--one
of your Englishwomen. Perhaps I cannot help what I do. In the East a
woman is a chattel and has no will of her own."

"A chattel!" cried Stuart scornfully. "Your resemblance to the
'chattels' of the East is a remote one. There is Eastern blood in
your veins, no doubt, but you are educated, you are a linguist, you
know the world. Right and wrong are recognizable to the lowest savage."

"And if they recognize, but are helpless?"

Stuart made a gesture of impatience.

"You are simply seeking to enlist my sympathy," he said bitterly.
"But you have said nothing which inclines me to listen to you any
longer. Apart from the shock of finding you to be--what you are, I
am utterly mystified as to your object. I am a poor man. The entire
contents of my house would fetch only a few hundred pounds if sold
to-morrow. Yet you risk your liberty to rifle my bureau. For the last
time--what have you taken from that drawer?"

She leaned back against the table, toying with the broken piece of
gold and glancing down at it as she did so. Her long lashes cast
shadows below her eyes, and a hint of colour was returning to her
cheeks. Stuart studied her attentively--even delightedly, for all
her shortcomings, and knew in his heart that he could never give her
in charge of the police. More and more the wonder of it all grew upon
him, and now he suddenly found himself thinking of the unexplained