"Here," he said, "twenty thousand dollars." He held the paper well out of the little man's reach. "Now," he challenged, "tell me where it is?"
Into the goldsmith's eyes came a lightning flash of intelligence, such as Flora remembered to have seen there when Farrell Wand, leaning on the dusty counter, had bidden him go and bring something pretty. He seemed to quiver a moment in indecision. Then he whipped his hand out of his sleeve and held it forth palm upward. This time it was Chatworth who cried out. The thing that lay on the goldsmith's palm Flora had never seen, though once it had been described to her--"a bit of an old gold heathen god, curled around himself, with his head of two yellow sapphires and a big blue stone on top."
There it blazed at her, the jewel she had carried in her bosom, that she had hidden in her pouch of gold, and that had vanished from it at the touch of a magic hand, now cunningly restored to its right place in the forehead of the Crew Idol, crowning him with living light.
Speechless they looked together at the magic thing. They had thought it far at sea; and as if at a wave of a genii's wand it was here before them flashing in the quiet garden.
With an effort Chatworth seemed to keep himself from seizing on ring and man together. He looked searchingly at the goldsmith and seemed on the point of asking a question, but, instead, he slowly held out his hand. He held it out cup-fashion. It shook so that Flora saw the Chinaman steady it to drop in the ring. Then, folding his check miraculously small, enveloping it in the ragged piece of newspaper, the little man turned and shuffled from them down the gravel walk.
Chatworth stood staring after him with his Idol in his palm. Then, turning slow eyes to Flora, "How did he come by this?" he asked, as sternly as if he demanded it of the mystery itself.
"He had it, from the very first." The pieces of the puzzle were flashing together in Flora's mind. "That first time Harry left the exhibit he took it there."
"But the blue sapphire?" Chatworth insisted.
"Harry," Flora whispered, "Harry gave it up to him."
"Gave it up to him!" Chatworth echoed in scorn.
But she had had an inspiration of understanding. "He had to--for money to get off with. He gave Clara all he had so that she would let him get away. Poor thing!" she added in a lower breath, but Chatworth did not hear her. He had taken the Idol in his thumb and finger, and, holding it up in the broadening light, looked fixedly at it with the passionate incredulity with which one might hold and look at a friend thought dead. She watched him with her jealous pang increasing to a greater feeling--a feeling of being separated from him by this jewel which he loved, and which had grown to seem hateful to her, which had shown itself a breeder of all the greedy passions. She came softly up to him, and, lifting her hand, covered the Idol.