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illing to accept fifty thousand dollars."
Miss Fraser regarded the lady with not unjustifiable amazement.
"Fifty thousand dollars! that's ten thousand pounds. I told you--"
Mrs. Van Groot cut her short, her pretty cheeks dimpled by the sweetest little smile.
"Am I not correct, Miss Fraser, in saying that you would accept fifty thousand dollars?"
"I should be perfectly willing to accept fifty thousand dollars--"
"Isn't that what I told Mr. Van Groot?"
"But I couldn't give you the pearls."
"Couldn't give me the pearls!"
Mrs. Van Groot's large blue eyes seemed to open a wee bit wider. Her husband commented on Catherine's remark.
"You mean, Miss Fraser, that you'd like fifty thousand dollars for nothing? There are a good many about like you."
"I mean," explained Catherine, "that the pearls were placed in my charge by Mr. Stewart, and I can only hand them over to him. I've told Mr. Stewart, and he quite knows, that before I consider the question of handing them over, even to him, Mr. Hugh Beckwith must be perfectly recovered. And he's far from being that."
"Isn't Mr. Beckwith out of bed? The mistake is yours. Nurse, wheel Mr. Beckwith into Miss Fraser's room."
While Catherine was speaking, the fact that the door on to the landing was being quietly opened went unnoticed. She possibly spoke louder than she thought, since Mr. Stewart, who opened the door, apparently heard what she said. Uninvited he entered the room, as Mr. Van Groot and Mr. Bennington had previously done. Nurse Ada wheeling a Bath chair in which, propped up by cushions, was a man with a green silk shade across his eyes, and strips of what looked like white sticking-plaster ornamenting his countenance here and there, came close at his heels, and behind her was Mr. Isaac Rothenstein, his extraordinary hat seeming, as usual, glued to his head, his superabundant wealth of hair covering him as with a thatch. At the back was Dr. Rasselton. Although he came last, when th
