"Admirable!" he whispered. "Oh, admirable!"
Hesitant to do this thing which to him, by the strange standard of his
warped code, spelled dishonour, he would and he would not; and while he
paltered, was visited by an oddly vivid memory of the clear and candid eyes
of Cecelia Brooke, seemed veritably to see them searching his own with
their look of grieving wonder ... the eyes of one woman who had reckoned
him worthy of her trust....
Almost he won victory in this fight he was foredoomed to lose. Under the
level and steadfast regard of those eyes his hand went out to replace the
necklace, moved unsteadily, faltered....
Beyond the windows an incautious footfall sounded. In the darkness out
there someone blundered into a piece of wicker furniture and disturbed it
with a small scraping sound, all but inaudible, but to the thief as loud as
the blast of a police whistle.
Instantly and instinctively, in two simultaneous gestures, Lanyard dropped
the necklace into an inner pocket of his coat and switched off the
picture-light.
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