She removed the wraps with which her houlders were covered, standing in front f the mirror, in order to see herself once nore in all her glory. But suddenly she ave a shriek. Her diamond necklace vas no longer about her neck!

Her husband, already half undressed, sked:

"What's the matter with you?"

She turned to him, half distracted: "I have I have I no longer have Madame Forestier's necklace.'

He sprang to his feet in dismay. "What? What do you say? It's impossible!"

And they hunted in the folds of the dress, in the folds of her cloak, in all the pockets everywhere. They could not find it.

"Are you sure that you had it when you left the ball?" he asked.

"Yes, I felt it in the vestibule of the palace."

"But, if you had lost it in the street, we should have heard it drop. It must be in the cab."

"Yes, that is probable. Did you take the number?"

"No. Didn't you look at it?"
"No."

They stared at each other in utter dismay. At last Loisel dressed himself.

"I am going to walk back over the whole distance we walked to the cab," he said, "to see if I can't find it."

And he left the room. She sat there in her ball-dress, without strength to go to bed, cowering in a chair, without fire, without a thought.

Her husband returned about seven o'clock. He had found nothing.

He went to the Prefecture of Police, to the newspaper offices, to offer a reward; to the cab companies-everywhere, in short, that a ray of hope suggested.

She went all day, in the same state of benumbed dismay in face of this terrible disaster.

Loisel returned at night, pale and hollow-cheeked; he had discovered nothing. "You must write to your friend," he said, "that you have broken the fasten

ing of her necklace, and that you are having it repaired. That will give us time to turn around.”

She wrote at his dictation.

At the end of the week they had lost all hope; and Loisel, who had aged five years, declared:

"We must think about replacing the jewels."

The next day they took the box that had held it and went to the jeweller whose name was inside. He consulted his books.

"It was not I who sold the necklace, madame," he said; "I simply furnished the case."

Then they went from one jeweller to another, looking for a necklace like the lost one, searching their memories, both fairly ill with disappointment and mental anguish.

In a shop at the Palais Royal they found a string of diamonds which seemed to them to be absolutely like the one they had lost. It was worth forty thousand francs, but they could have it for thirtysix thousand.

They requested the jeweller not to sell it for three days. And they bargained with him-that he should take it back for thirty-four thousand francs if the other should be found before the end of February.

Loisel had eighteen thousand francs left by his father. He would borrow the

rest.

And he borrowed, asking one person for a thousand francs, another for five hundred, five louis here, three louis there. He gave notes, made ruinous agreements, dealt with usurers, with the whole race of money-lenders. He mortgaged the whole latter portion of his life, risked his signature without any certainty that he would be able to honour it; and, dismayed by agonizing thoughts of the future, by the black poverty that was about to fall upon him, by the prospect of all sorts of physical privations and mental torture, he went to buy the new diamond necklace, and laid upon the jeweller's counter thirty-six thousand francs.

When Madame Loisel carried the necklace to Madame Forestier, the latter said to her with an injured air:

"You should have returned it sooner, for I might have needed it.'

She did not open the case, as her friend dreaded. If she had discovered the substitution, what would she have thought, what would she have said? Would she not have taken her for a thief?

Madame Loisel came to know the wretched life of the needy. She made the best of it, however, at the outset, heroically. That dreadful debt must be paid. She would pay it. They dismissed their servant; they changed their lodgings, and hired an attic chamber under the

eaves.

She became acquainted with the heavier kinds of housework, the odious tasks of the kitchen. She washed the dishes, wearing her pink nails away on the greasy earthenware and the bottoms of the saucepans. She washed the soiled linen, the shirts and dishcloths, and hung them out to dry on a line; she carried the slops down to the street every morning, and carried up the water, stopping on every floor to take breath. And, dressed like a woman of the common people, she went to the fruiterer's, to the grocer's, to the butcher's, with her basket on her arm, bargaining, insulted, doling out her paltry money sou by sou.

Each month they had to meet some notes, renew others, beg for time.

The husband worked evenings straightening out a tradesman's accounts; and he often copied manuscripts at night at five. sous the page.

And this life lasted them for ten years. At the end of that time they had paid everything, everything-the charges of usurers and the accumulation of the compound interest.

Madame Loisel seemed an old woman now. She had become the strong, tough, rugged woman of impoverished households. Always unkempt, with red hands, and skirts askew, she talked loudly while washing the floors with a great splashing. But sometimes, when her husband

was at the office, she would seat herself at the window and think of that evening of long ago, of that ball, at which she had been so lovely and so fêted.

What would have happened if she had not lost that necklace? Who knows? Who knows? What a strange, changeful thing life is. How little is needed to ruin or to save us!

One Sunday, when she had gone out for a walk in the Champs-Élysées, for a little recreation after the labors of the week, she suddenly observed a woman wheeling a child. It was Madame Forestier, still young, still beautiful, still fascinating.

Madame Loisel was greatly excited. Should she speak to her? Yes, to be sure. And now that she had paid, she would tell her the whole story. Why not?

She approached her.

"Good day, Jeanne."

The other did not recognize her, and was surprised to be addressed thus familiarly by that bourgeoise.

"But-madame," she said hesitatingly, "I don't know-You must have made a mistake."

"No, I am Mathilde Loisel."

Her friend uttered an exclamation. "O my poor Mathilde, how you have changed!"

"Yes, I have had some very hard days since I saw you and much sufferingand all on your account!"

"On my account? How so?"

"You remember that diamond necklace that you lent me to wear to the ball at the ministry?"

"You say that you bought a diamond necklace to replace mine?"

"Yes. You didn't notice it! Did you? They were very much alike.”

And she smiled with a proud and naïve delight.

Madame Forestier, deeply moved, grasped her hands.

"Oh, my poor Mathilde! Why, my necklace was paste. It was worth at most five hundred francs!"

ON GLANCING over my notes of the seventy-odd cases in which I have during the last eight years studied the methods of my friend Sherlock Holmes, I find many tragic, some comic, a large number merely strange, but none commonplace; for, working as he did rather for the love of his art than for the acquirement of wealth, he refused to associate with any investigation which did not tend towards the unusual, and even the fantastic. Of all these varied cases, however, I cannot recall any which presented more singular features than that which was associated with the well-known Surrey family of the Roylotts of Stoke Moran. The events in question occurred in the early days of my association with Holmes, when we were sharing rooms as bachelors in Baker Street. It is possible that I might have placed them upon record before, but a promise of secrecy was made at the time, from which I have only been freed during the last month by the untimely death of the lady to whom the pledge was given. It is perhaps as well

that the facts should now come to light, for I have reasons to know that there are wide-spread rumors as to the death of Dr. Grimesby Roylott which tend to make the matter even more terrible than the truth.

It was early in April in the year '83 that I woke one morning to find Sherlock Holmes standing, fully dressed, by the side of my bed. He was a late riser as a rule, and as the clock on the mantelpiece showed me that it was only a quarter past seven, I blinked up at him in some surprise, and perhaps just a little resentment, for I was myself regular in my habits.

"Very sorry to knock you up, Watson," said he, "but it's the common lot this morning. Mrs. Hudson has been knocked up, she retorted upon me, and I on you."

"What is it, then-a fire?"

"No; a client. It seems that a young lady has arrived in a considerable state of excitement, who insists upon seeing me. She is waiting now in the sitting-room. Now, when young ladies wander about the metropolis at this hour of the morning, and knock sleepy people up out of their beds, I presume that it is some

thing very pressing which they have to communicate. Should it prove to be an interesting case, you would, I am sure, wish to follow it from the outset. I thought, at any rate, that I should call you and give you the chance."

"My dear fellow, I would not miss it for anything."

I had no keener pleasure than in following Holmes in his professional investigations, and in admiring the rapid deductions, as swift as intuitions, and yet always founded on a logical basis, with which he unravelled the problems which were submitted to him. I rapidly threw on my clothes, and was ready in a few minutes to accompany my friend down to the sitting-room. A lady dressed in black and heavily veiled, who had been sitting in the window, rose as we entered.

"Good-morning, madam," said Holmes, cheerily. "My name is Sherlock Holmes. This is my intimate friend and associate, Dr. Watson, before whom you can speak as freely as before myself. Ha! I am glad to see that Mrs. Hudson has had the good sense to light the fire. Pray draw up to it and I shall order you a cup of hot coffee, for I observe that you are shivering."

"It is not cold which makes me shiver," said the woman, in a low voice, changing her seat as requested.

"What, then?"

"It is fear, Mr. Holmes. It is terror." It is terror." She raised her veil as she spoke, and we could see that she was indeed in a pitiable state of agitation, her face all drawn and gray, with restless, frightened eyes, like those of some hunted animal. Her features and figure were those of a woman of thirty, but her hair was shot with premature gray, and her expression was weary and haggard. Sherlock Holmes ran her over with one of his quick, allcomprehensive glances.

"You must not fear," said he, soothingly, bending forward and patting her forearm. "We shall soon set matters right, I have no doubt. You have come in by train this morning, I see." "You know me, then?"

"No, but I observe the second half of a return ticket in the palm of your left glove. You must have started early, and yet you had a good drive in a dog-cart, along heavy roads, before you reached the station."

The lady gave a violent start, and stared in bewilderment at my companion.

"There is no mystery, my dear madam," said he, smiling. "The left arm of your jacket is spattered with mud in no less than seven places. The marks are perfectly fresh. There is no vehicle save a dog-cart which throws up mud in that way, and then only when you sit on the left-hand side of the driver."

"Whatever your reasons may be, you are perfectly correct," said she. "I started from home before six, reached Leatherhead at twenty past, and came in by the first train to Waterloo. Sir, I can stand this strain no longer; I shall go mad if it continues. I have no one to turn to-none, save only one, who cares for me, and he, poor fellow, can be of little aid. I have heard of you, Mr. Holmes; I have heard of you from Mrs. Farintosh, whom you helped in the hour of her sore need. It was from her that I had your address. Oh, sir, do you not think that you could help me, too, and at least throw a little light through the dense darkness which surrounds me? At present it is out of my power to reward you for your services, but in a month or six weeks I shall be married, with the control of my own income, and then at least you shall not find me ungrateful."

Holmes turned to his desk, and unlocking it, drew out a small case-book, which he consulted.

"Farintosh," said he. "Ah yes, I recall the case; it was concerned with an opal tiara. I think it was before your time, Watson. I can only say, madam, that I shall be happy to devote the same care to your case as I did to that of your friend. As to reward, my profession is its own reward; but you are at liberty to defray whatever expenses I may be put to, at the time which suits you best. And now I beg that you will lay before us

everything that may help us in forming an opinion upon the matter."

"Alas!" replied our visitor, "the very horror of my situation lies in the fact that my fears are so vague, and my suspicions depend so entirely upon small points, which might seem trivial to another, that even he to whom of all others I have a right to look for help and advice. looks upon all that I tell him about it as the fancies of a nervous woman. He does not say so, but I can read it from his soothing answers and averted eyes. But I have heard, Mr. Holmes, that you can see deeply into the manifold wickedness of the human heart. You may advise me how to walk amid the dangers which encompass me.'

"I am all attention, madam."

"My name is Helen Stoner, and I am living with my step-father, who is the last survivor of one of the oldest Saxon families in England, the Roylotts of Stoke Moran, on the western border of Surrey."

Holmes nodded his head. "The name is familiar to me," said he.

the

"The family was at one time among richest in England, and the estates extended over the borders into Berkshire in the north, and Hampshire in the west. In the last century, however, four successive heirs were of a dissolute and wasteful disposition, and the family ruin was eventually completed by a gambler in the days of the Regency. Nothing was left save a few acres of ground, and the twohundred-year-old house, which is itself crushed under a heavy mortgage. The last squire dragged out his existence there, living the horrible life of an aristocratic pauper; but his only son, my step-father, seeing that he must adapt himself to the from a relative, which enabled him new conditions, obtained an advance to take a medical degree, and went out to Calcutta, where, by his professional skill and his force of character, he established a large practice. In a fit of anger, however, caused by

Some robberies which had been perpetrated in the house, he beat his native but

ler to death, and narrowly escaped a capital sentence. As it was, he suffered a long term of imprisonment, and afterwards returned to England a morose and disappointed man.

"When Dr. Roylott was in India he married my mother, Mrs. Stoner, the young widow of Major-general Stoner, of the Bengal Artillery. My sister Julia and I were twins, and we were only two years old at the time of my mother's remarriage. She had a considerable sum of money-not less than £1000 a year-and this. she bequeathed to Dr. Roylott entirely while we resided with him, with a provision that a certain annual sum should be allowed to each of us in the event of our marriage. Shortly after our return to England my mother died-she was killed eight years ago in a railway accident near Crewe. Dr. Roylott then abandoned his attempts to establish himself in practice in London, and took us to live with him in the old ancestral house at Stoke Moran. The money which my mother had left was enough for all our wants, and there seemed to be no obstacle to our happiness.

"But a terrible change came over our step-father about this time. Instead of making friends and exchanging visits with. our neighbors, who had at first been overjoyed to see a Roylott of Stoke Moran back in the old family seat, he shut himself up in his house, and seldom came out save to indulge in ferocious quarrels with whoever might cross his path. Violence of temper approaching to mania has been hereditary in the men of the family, and in my step-father's case it had, I believe, been intensified by his long residence in the tropics. A series of disgraceful brawls took place, two of which ended in the police-court, until at last he became the terror of the village, and the folks would fly at his approach, for he is a uncontrollable in his anger. man of immense strength, and absolutely

"Last week he hurled the local black

smith over a parapet into a stream, and

it was only by paying over all the money which I could gather together that I was