MARJORIE MEAGH sat at breakfast with her uncle.

Sir Ralph was in an unusually irritable mood. Breakfast was never a pleasant meal for him, but his fault-finding was generally concentrated upon the domestic shortcomings of his wife and the quality of the food.

Now they took a wider range. He put down his paper suddenly and savagely.

"I wish to Heaven Vera wouldn't go dashing off to town," he said.

Although he was a domestic tyrant of a common type, he stood in some little awe of his young wife. On three occasions in their lives she had startled him by the vehemence of her rebellion, and with every explosion he had grown less self-confident and less satisfied with his own capacity for commanding the situation.

Marjorie looked up from her letters.

"Vera is making a serious study of the drama," she said. "You must remember, uncle, that if by any chance she does succeed as a playwright it will mean an immense income to her."

She was very tactful. She knew that monetary considerations influenced her uncle. It was Vera's career, which she had discovered two years before, when a little play, written for a charitable entertainment, had met with recognition at the hands of the critics.

Though it had pleasantly surprised her husband to the possibility of his having discovered a self-supporting wife, it had been also a source of constant irritation to him. It meant expense, constant visits to the Metropolis, the cost of seats at a theatre, though this latter expense had happily been spared him of late by the discovery of a relation engaged in newspaper work, who had provided complimentary tickets.

But it meant opening the flat in town; it meant the detachment of a servant from a household where the domestic arrangements, as planned by Sir Ralph, were so devised as to fully occupy every moment of the time of every person engaged.

Sir Ralph took up the paper only to put it down again a moment later.

"That scoundrel, Mansingham, has appealed," he said. "It is monstrous."

The institution of the Court of Criminal Appeal was a sore point with Sir Ralph. He felt that its creation had been expressly designed for the purpose of annoying him. He had written letters to Times about it, and had expressed himself, at such public functions as gave him opportunity, in no gentle terms. It was remarkable, under the circumstances, that the Court of Appeal continued to sit.

"It is monstrous," he said again. "It is a slight upon the men who are engaged in carrying out the work of administering criminal law."

His anger came in little spasms. He had a fresh grievance every few moments. Again his paper came down after an interval.

"That young man, Gallinford, did not arrive last night, Marjorie," he said, severely. "The young men of to-day seem to be lamentably deficient in good manners."

"He wired, uncle," protested the girl. "He said that he was detained in town."

"Bah!" snapped her uncle, "that isn't good enough. I am a man of the world, Marjorie. These flimsy excuses do not suffice for me, and I advise you, if you desire to be happy — and the only way to be happy," he said parenthetically, "is to be without illusions — to view these unsupported excuses with suspicion. He is a young man," he went on, elaborating his grievance, "newly arrived in England after a long absence in a barbarous country — "

"In Italy, uncle," she murmured, "it isn't exactly barbarous, is it?"

"Barbarous?" he said explosively. "Why, here are two Italian murders in one day!" He flourished the paper in support of his contention.

"Of course it is barbarous! And he comes back to civilization after a long absence, to a beautiful girl, and I admit that you are that, Marjorie," he said comfortably, with an air of one who was partly responsible for her beauty, "and instead of rushing, as he should, and as young men did in my day, to his fiancee, he breaks his journey in town! It is perfectly inexcusable!"

She did not defend her lover. She knew how valueless such arguments were with her uncle. He was entirely without inclination to reason — at breakfast-time, at any rate.

For the rest of the meal he grumbled spasmodically behind the paper. He reminded her irresistibly of a dog with a bone. From time to time he fired little sentences at her — sentences which had neither beginning nor end, and were generally associated with the Government's shortcomings.

Suddenly she heard the grind of carriage wheels coming up the carriage drive, and jumped from the table. She gave one glance through the window and, without a word to her uncle, flew from the room.

He glared after her in astonishment. In a few minutes she came back, with a delicate flush on her face and laughter in her eyes, leading a tall, broad-shouldered young man, brown of face and smiling a little uneasily, for he did not contemplate the coming interview with any great sense of joy.

"This is Mr. Gallinford, uncle," said the girl. "You have met him before, haven't you?"

Sir Ralph not only had met him before, but did not wish to meet him then. He was in no mood for introductions to strange people. He had, moreover, a grievance against this young man who had so slighted his hospitality. He greeted Frank Gallinford with a grunt in which he expressed in his bluff, hearty English way, as he imagined it, at once his welcome and a foretaste of the reprimand which was coming.

"I am glad to meet you, sir," said Frank.

He held out a big, hearty hand and shook Sir Ralph's.

"I owe you an apology for not having come last night."

Sir Ralph inclined his head. There was no doubt whatever about the apology being due.

"I had a little adventure," Frank went on, and proceeded to relate the chief events of the previous evening.

In spite of the fact that he had made up his mind to accept no explanation as being adequate, Sir Ralph found himself listening with keen interest. The girl's face showed her concern.

"Oh, Frank," she said, in a shocked voice, "how terrible! Was he killed?"

Frank nodded.

"I had an interview with the famous detective — what is his name?"

"Tillizini?" said Sir Ralph.

"Yes," said Frank, "that was his name. A remarkable chap. Of course I handed the locket over to the police, and Tillizini has it now."

"It's very extraordinary," said Sir Ralph, with a puzzled frown. "Your description of the locket sounds very much like one I have in my collection."

A sudden panic of fear passed over him. What if this was the famous locket? What if it had been abstracted without his noticing it?

"Excuse me," he said.

Half-way to the door he turned. "Will you come along with me? — perhaps your description of the medallion may be useful. I have got a fear — "

He shook his head.

"You don't think it's yours?" said the girl.

"I don't know," said Sir Ralph. He was obviously agitated. They followed him from the room to his study — a handsome combination between that and the library. From a steel drawer in his desk he took a key and led the way again upstairs.

Sir Ralph was more than an amateur collector. Whatever his judgments might be on the Bench, there were few who could dispute his knowledge of those articles of virtue which it was his delight to collect. The Morte-Mannery collection, though a small one, was famous. It was Sir Ralph's pleasure, from time to time during the year, to show his treasures to the great connoisseurs of Europe.

The joy of possessing something which nobody else had, or if they had, only in a minor degree and in a less valuable form; and, moreover, to hold these wonders of dead craftsmen which were coveted by less fortunate people, and which is the basis of every true collector's pride, was the great passion of Sir Ralph Morte-Mannery's life.

He had devoted forty years to securing and arranging the hundred and fifty lockets which formed his collection. The room in which they lay had been specially constructed with a view to resisting fire and burglars.

It was an open secret that, in rebuilding Highlawns after he had acquired it, the whole scheme of renovation had circled about the collection room. It was more like a prison than a museum, thought Frank, as he followed his conductor through the narrow entrance guarded with steel doors faced with rosewood.

It was lighted by a large window, heavily barred, and the glass itself being set with strong steel network. Burglar alarms of the most ingenious character rendered entrance without detection almost impossible. Floors, wall and roof were of reinforced concrete. One long case ran the length of the room, a strip of carpet on each side forming the only attempt that had been made at comfort. The cases themselves were under heavy wooden shutters, and these Sir Ralph unlocked.

It was a disappointing display to the average man. Row after row of medallions, dull gold, silver, jewels, enamels. There was nothing to excite the enthusiasm of any other than a connoisseur.

Very quickly, one by one, Sir Ralph unshuttered the cases, his anxious eyes running over the neatly-ticketed rows.

"No," he said, after a survey, "nothing has gone. I thought from your description that my Leonard...."

The fire of the enthusiast came to his eyes. With hands that shook a little he unlocked one case, and lifted out a small gold medallion.

"Why!" exclaimed Frank in astonishment as he took it in his hand, "this is the very locket which the man gave me!"

Sir Ralph smiled.

"That is impossible," he said. "Impossible! Only two such lockets were known, and one has been irretrievably lost." He held the little jewel in his hand gingerly. "This and its fellow were made by the greatest artist that the world has ever known, Leonardo da Vinci. The date is probably 1387, and the design is Leonardo's own. It expresses something of the master's genius. As you know, he was a man who was not satisfied with painting pictures; there was no branch of art, from sculpture, to the very mixing of paint, in which he did not interest himself. He was a doctor and a chemist of no mean qualities, and it was after the great plague in Milan in 1386 that he made the two lockets, of which this is the only one extant.

"One he gave to his patron, Il Moro, the usurper of the Duchy, and the other he gave a year or two subsequently to Caesar Borgia. They were both commemorations of his patron's escape from the plague. You will observe on the back" — he turned the jewel over gently — "there is an allegorical representation. You see the picture of the little fiend? " — he pointed it oat with his little finger — "that represents the sickness which visited the whole of Italy. You see the angel? — that must represent his 'unconquerable patrons.' What the other signs are — " he smiled, and this cheerless room saw all the smiles that Sir Ralph was prepared to bestow upon the world — "are incomprehensible to me. Probably Leonardo was a Futurist."

He chuckled at his own harmless jest, and the girl listened to him wonderingly, for he was a different man in this atmosphere. She had never seen him so before; he was human, and tender and keen.

"The other medallion," Sir Ralph went on, "was stolen from the Dublin museum. The thief was traced, after a great deal of trouble, to a cross-Channel boat; he was seen to go on the boat to cross from Harwich to the Hook of Holland. There must have been some of his confederates on board, for in the night a great outcry was heard in one of the cabins, and the detective who watched him saw him fleeing along the deck pursued by two foreigners. Before they could either arrest the men who were following or capture the man himself, he had leapt overboard, and with him, it was presumed, had passed the second medallion."

"What was the meaning of it all?" asked Frank.

Sir Ralph shook his head.

"We don't know. It was supposed at the time that he was endeavouring to give the jewel to some of his confederates, and that in the act of doing so he was seen. The men who were chasing him that night on the ship gave a plausible explanation; they said they thought he was mad and endeavouring to commit suicide, and they were trying to prevent him."

He turned the jewel over again, and looked at it lovingly before he replaced it in its case.

"Whatever it was your unfortunate man had," he said, "it was not the fellow to this." Outside, he was himself again, cold, hard, commonplace, but that little glimpse of his true character revealed much to Marjorie.

She understood now the ferocity of the sentence he had passed upon Mansingham. His collection was more than wife or child, more precious than ambition; his passion was strong enough to override his sense of justice.

He looked at his watch with a frown. He had remembered one of the unpleasant facts of life.

"Vera has not returned. I thought she would have come down by the same train as you."

"I was the only passenger for Burboro', as far as I can remember," said Frank.

Sir Ralph looked at his watch again.

"There's another train in by now," he said, "she ought to be here."

He had hardly spoken the words when Vera's voice was heard in the hall below, making inquiries of the servants.

"Oh, there you are," she cried.

She looked up as the party descended the broad stairway into the hall. For a moment a look of wonder came into her eyes at the sight of Frank.

"You have never met Mr. Gallinford, have you?" asked Marjorie, as she introduced them.

"I am very glad to meet you now, at any rate," said Vera, cheerfully.

She was glad, too, that there was some other interest to temper her husband's annoyance. That he should be annoyed she took for granted. It was the atmosphere which invariably met her on her return from town.

He looked again at his watch and then at her, and she understood the significance of the examination.

"I am so sorry," she said, carelessly. "I lost the fast train and had to take the slow one. It was very annoying. I think my watch must have been wrong."

Vera had a very beautiful voice, low and rich, and full of beautiful qualities.

"You've been seeing our wonderful collection?" she said.

Sir Ralph snorted. He hated any claim to partnership in respect to his medallions, and Vera knew it. It was her oblique reply to his unspoken attack.

"You haven't seen the best of them; you ought to see the belts," she said.

"That is a collection which is not sufficiently complete," interrupted Sir Ralph stiffly, "to be examined. Really, Vera, I wish you would not embarrass me by these references."

He strode off to the library, leaving them alone.

She laughed softly.

"He's a great trial sometimes," she said, half to herself.

Then she turned to the girl, and Marjorie noticed with pleasure that the moodiness and depression of yesterday was entirely dissipated. She was at her brightest, her ready smile came and went.

In a few moments she was chatting with Frank Gallinford about Italy as though she had known him all her life.

"It must be a quaint country," she said. "You know, I've a peculiar affection for the land, I am half Italian myself."

"Are you really?"

It was Marjorie who asked the question with girlish delight. "Oh, I say, how romantic! Don't you ever want to stab uncle with a stiletto or something?"

She laughed, but Frank's smile was a trifle grim. He had too vivid a recollection of somebody striking at him with a stiletto to derive the full amount of amusement out of the question. That was part of the story which he had not deemed it necessary to tell.

"Oh, no," drawled Vera, "I never feel sufficiently bloodthirsty."

Suddenly Frank's face went drawn and grey. He stepped back with a little cry.

"What is the matter?" asked Marjorie, in alarm.

He passed his hand over his eyes.

"But really — aren't you ill?"

He shook his head.

"No, it's a little passing giddiness," he muttered. He was seized with an over-powering anxiety to get away.

"I forgot," said the girl, sympathetically, "you've had such a trying night. I'll see if your room is ready; perhaps if you were to lie down for an hour or two you would be better."

He nodded, and, raising his head, met Vera's curious eyes.

"If you will forgive the impertinence," he said, slowly, "that is a curious ring of yours."

She turned white and put her hands quickly behind her back; but too late — he had seen the square black opal — for the second time in twenty-four hours.