doubtfully, and instead of looking the prelate in the face, cast down his
eyes in gloomy bewilderment. The patriarch appeared not to observe the
young man's repulsion and clasped his hand warmly. Then he changed the
subject, speaking of the grieving widow, of the decadence of Memphis,
of Orion's plans for the future, and finally of the gems dedicated to
the Church by the deceased Mukaukas. The dialogue had taken a calm,
conversational tone; the patriarch was sitting in the dead man's arm-
chair, and there was nothing forced or unnatural in his asking, in the
course of discussing the jewels, what had become of the great emerald.

Orion replied, in the same tone, that this stone was not, strictly
speaking, any part of his father's gift; but Benjamin expressed an
opposite opinion.

All the tortures Orion had endured since that luckless deed in the
tablinum revived in his soul during this discussion; however, it was some
small relief to him to perceive, that neither his mother nor Dame
Susannah seemed to have told the patriarch the guilt he had incurred by
reason of that gem. Susannah, of course, had said nothing of the
incident in order to avoid speaking of her daughter's false evidence;
still, this miserable business might easily have come to the ears of the
stern old man, and to the guilty youth no sacrifice seemed too great to
smother any enquiry for the ill-fated jewel. He unhesitatingly explained
that the emerald had disappeared, but that he was quite ready to make
good its value. Benjamin might fix his own estimate, and name any sum he
wished for some benevolent purpose, and he, Orion, was ready to pay it to
him on the spot.

The prelate, however, calmly persisted in his demand, enjoined Orion to
have a diligent search made for the gem, and declared that he regarded it