"'Indeed, I am so sorry,' she said, laughing; and she continued to
laugh until she began to breathe so quickly that I thought she was
going to faint.
"I can see now that the last part of that journey must have been a
terrible half-hour for her. She had the cigar-case safe enough, but
she knew that she herself was not safe. She understood if I were to
open my bag, even at the last minute, and miss the case, I would know
positively that she had taken it. I had placed the diamonds in the
bag at the very moment she entered the compartment, and no one but
our two selves had occupied it since. She knew that when we reached
Marseilles she would either be twenty thousand pounds richer than
when she left Paris, or that she would go to jail. That was the
situation as she must have read it, and I don't envy her her state of
mind during that last half-hour. It must have been hell.
"I saw that something was wrong, and, in my innocence, I even
wondered if possibly my cognac had not been a little too strong. For
she suddenly developed into a most brilliant conversationalist, and
applauded and laughed at everything I said, and fired off questions
at me like a machine-gun, so that I had no time to think of anything
but of what she was saying.
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