FORE:"Give me the gems," Balmayne said doggedly. "Everything depends upon you doing what I tell you now. Besides, we shall get them back again. By sheer force of circumstances the tables have been turned in Maitrank's favour. Give me the gems!"There was no date and no address. There was a deal of flourish about the letter as if the writer had learned his craft abroad. It ran as follows:
FORE:With regard to those more refined aspects of temperance, in which it appears as a restraint exercised by reason over anger, pity, and grief, Epicurus and his followers refused to go all lengths with the Stoics in their effort to extirpate emotion altogether. But here they seem not to have proceeded on any fixed principle, except that of contradicting the opposite school. That the sage will feel pity, and sometimes shed tears,136 is a sentiment from which few are now likely to dissent; yet the absolute impassivity at which Stoicism aimed seems still more consistent with a philosophy whose ideal was complete exemption from pain; while in practice it would be rather easier to attain than the power of feeling quite happy on the rack, which the accomplished Epicurean was expected to possess.137
FORE:Then there was the voice of Balmayne in a key of mirth. The front door was opened, the call of a cab whistle thrilled down the street. It was almost as if there were two sets of people in the house, one family given over to the dark and gloomy, the other all comedy and smiles.
THREE:Lytton Avenue was quiet for once, and Leona Lalage was glad of it. She said truthfully that she had a splitting headache, so that she was thankful to be alone and lie down on a couch in the drawing-room with the lights lowered and eau de Cologne on her temples. Hetty sat a little way off engaged on some fancywork. It seemed hard to imagine that all this refinement and enviable luxury covered crime and mystery.
THREE:
