dame Goesler twenty thousand
pounds and all his jewels. The money may be very well, but I think
he has been wrong about the jewellery. As to myself I do not care a
straw, but you will be sorry; and then people will talk. The lawyers
will, of course, write to her, but I suppose you had better tell her.
They seem to think that the stones are worth a great deal of money;
but I have long learned never to believe any statement that is made
to me. They are all here, and I suppose she will have to send some
authorised person to have them packed. There is a regular inventory,
of which a copy shall be sent to her by post as soon as it can be
prepared." Now it must be owned that the duchess did begrudge her
friend the duke's collection of pearls and diamonds.

About noon they met. "My dear," she said, "you had better hear your
good fortune at once. Read that,--just that side. Plantagenet is
wrong in saying that I shall regret it. I don't care a bit about it.
If I want a ring or a brooch he can buy me one. But I never did care
about such things, and I don't now. The money is all just as it
should be." Madame Goesler read the passage, and the blood mounted
up into her face. She read it very slowly, and when she had finished
reading it she was for a moment or two at a loss for her words to
express herself. "You had better send one of Garnett's people,"
said the Duchess, naming the house of a distinguished jeweller and
goldsmith in London.

"It will hardly need," said Madame Goesler.

"You had better be careful. There is no knowing what they are worth.
He spent half his income on them, I believe, during part of his
life." There was a roughness about the Duchess of which she was
herself conscious, but which she could not restrain, though she knew
that it betrayed her chagrin.

Madame Goesler came gently up to her and touched her arm caressingly.
"Do you remember," said Madame Goesler, "a small ring with a black
diamond,--I suppose it was a diamond,--which he always wore?"

"I remember that he always did wear such a ring."

"I should like to have that," said Madame Goesler.

"You have them all,--everything. He makes no distinction."

"I should like to have that, Lady Glen,--for the sake of the hand
that wore it. But, as God is great above us, I will never take aught
else that has belonged to the Duke."

"Not take them!"

"Not a gem; not a stone; not a shilling."

"But you must."

"I rather think that I can be under no s