An agonised spasm swept her face; but almost on the instant she was calm.
She almost smiled as she said: "You may have left it in your room, Father.

Perhaps it has fallen out of the pocket-book whilst you were changing." Without a word we all hurried into the next room through the open door between the study and the bedroom.

And then a sudden calm fell on us like a cloud of fear.
There! on the table, lay the Jewel of Seven Stars, shining and sparkling with lurid light, as though each of the seven points of each the seven stars gleamed through blood! Timidly we each looked behind us, and then at each other.

Margaret was now like the rest of us.

She had lost her statuesque calm.