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treasure trove and flying wildly up the winding stair,
with her ears ringing perhaps with the muffled screams
from behind her and with the drumming of frenzied
hands against the slab of stone which was choking her
faithless lover's life out.

"Here was the secret of her blanched face, her shaken
nerves, her peals of hysterical laughter on the next
morning. But what had been in the box? What had she
done with that? Of course, it must have been the old
metal and pebbles which my client had dragged from the
mere. She had thrown them in there at the first
opportunity to remove the last trace of her crime.

"For twenty minutes I had sat motionless, thinking the
matter out. Musgrave still stood with a very pale
face, swinging his lantern and peering down into the
hole.

"'These are coins of Charles the First,' said he,
holding out the few which had been in the box; 'you
see we were right in fixing our date for the Ritual.'

"'We may find something else of Charles the First,' I
cried, as the probable meaning of the first two
questions of the Ritual broke suddenly upon me. 'Let
me see the contents of the bag which you fished from
the mere.'


"We ascended to his study, and he laid the debris
before me. I could understand his regarding it as of
small importance when I looked at it, for the metal
was almost black and the stones lustreless and dull.
I rubbed one of them on my sleeve, however, and it
glowed afterwards like a spark in the dark hollow of
my hand. The metal work was in the form of a double
ring, but it had been bent and twisted out of its
original shape.

"'You must bear in mind,' said I, 'that the royal
party made head in England even after the death of the
king, and that when they at last fled they probably
left many of their most precious possessions buried
behind them, with the intention of returning for them
in more peaceful times.'

"'My ancestor, Sir Ralph Musgrave, was a prominent
Cavalier and the right-hand man of Charles the Second
in his wanderings,' said my friend.

"'Ah, indeed!' I answered. 'Well now, I think that
really should give us the last link that we wanted. I
must congratulate you on coming into the possession,
though in rather a tragic manner of a relic which is
of great intrinsic value, but of even greater
importance as an historical curiosity.'

"'What is it, then?' he gasped in astonishment.

"'It is nothing less than the ancient crown of the
kings of England.'

"'The crown!'

"'Precisely. Consider what the Ritual says: How does
it run? "Whose was it?" "His who is gone." That was
after the execution of Charles. Then, "Who shall have
it?" "He who will come." That was Charles the
Second, whose advent was already foreseen. There can,
I think, be no doubt that this battered and shapeless
diadem once encircled the brows of the royal Stuarts.'

"'And how came it in the pond?'

"'Ah, that is a question that will take some time to
answer.' And with that I sketched out to him the

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