opportunity of disposing of jewels. Pearls thought to be still on
place or hidden on beach. Please return immediately. Be careful
about telegrams. She might get them first.
As soon as Anthony read that message he felt a conviction that it was all true. Whether or not she had stolen the pearls, he knew she was an imposter, for he realized now that he had known from the beginning that he had been in correspondence with a beautiful woman. He had tried to tell himself that the quality he felt in her letters was the vanity of a plain one, but all along he had known in his heart that in some strange and subtle way beauty has exuded from every line she wrote. He had been made a fool of by a beautiful and criminal woman. Well, he would hurry home and settle that score in short order. He was not a cruel man, he said to himself, but this did not seem a situation that called for mercy.
It was, of course, necessary that someone should meet Anthony on his arrival in New York and acquaint him with all the details. As Edna was unwilling to leave her household, the duty fell to Miss Wellington, who complained a great deal and leaped at the chance.
So when Anthony got off the train in the Pennsylvania Station there was not only his secretary but his old friend, Cora Wellington, waiting to greet him. The secretary remained to see about the bags, while he and Miss Wellington drove to his apartment. The robbery was still a secret--not to be told to the papers--even the secretary did not know of it. As they drove up the long incline to the level of Seventh Avenue Cora said the thing that Anthony wanted to hear and yet would not say even to himself:
"Really, Anthony, I think Edna might have guessed that it was not the governess you had sent. You couldn't have selected such a person—dyed yellow hair and a sort of exuberant, almost coarse good looks that you wouldn't admire in any woman and would not tolerate in a governess, I'm sure."
It was agreeable to hear, but he would not admit it.