room from the study; and as Mr. Gryce, attracted by its sparkle, stooped
to examine it, his eye caught sight of a similar one on the floor
beyond, and of still another a few steps farther on. The last one lay
close to the large centre-table before which he had just been standing.

The dainty trail formed by these bright sparkling drops seemed to affect
him oddly. He knew, minute observer that he was, that in the manufacture
of this garniture the spangles are strung on a thread which, if once
broken, allows them to drop away one by one, till you can almost follow
a woman so arrayed by the sequins that fall from her. Perhaps it was the
delicate nature of the clew thus offered that pleased him, perhaps it
was a recognition of the irony of fate in thus making a trap for unwary
mortals out of their vanities. Whatever it was, the smile with which he
turned his eye upon the table toward which he had thus been led was very
eloquent. But before examining this article of furniture more closely,
he attempted to find out where the thread had become loosened which had
let the spangles fall. Had it caught on any projection in doorway or
furniture? He saw none. All the chairs were cushioned and--But wait!
there was the cross! That had a fretwork of gold at its base. Might not
this filagree have caught in her dress as she was tearing down the cross
from the wall and so have started the thread which had given him this
exquisite clew?

Hastening to the spot where the cross had hung, he searched the floor at
his feet, but found nothing to confirm his conjecture until he had
reached the rug on which the prostrate man lay. There, amid the long
hairs of the bearskin, he came upon one other spangle, and knew that the
woman in the shiny clothes had stooped there before him.

Satisfied on this point, he returned to the table, and this time