So the self-same evening saw me safe in the train on
my way to Paris; and next morning I turned out of my comfortable
sleeping-car at the Gare de Strasbourg. My orders were to bring back
those diamonds, alive or dead, so to speak, in my pocket to Lucerne;
and to offer any needful sum, up to two thousand five hundred
pounds, for their immediate purchase.
When I arrived at the Deux Mondes I found the poor little curate
and his wife both greatly agitated. They had sat up all night, they
said, with their invalid sister; and the sleeplessness and suspense
had certainly told upon them after their long railway journey. They
were pale and tired, Mrs. Brabazon, in particular, looking ill and
worried--too much like White Heather. I was more than half ashamed
of bothering them about the diamonds at such a moment, but it
occurred to me that Amelia was probably right--they would now have
reached the end of the sum set apart for their Continental trip,
and a little ready cash might be far from unwelcome.
I broached the subject delicately. It was a fad of Lady Vandrift's,
I said. She had set her heart upon those useless trinkets. And she
wouldn't go without them. She must and would have them. But the
curate was obdurate. He threw Uncle Aubrey still in my teeth. Three
hundred?--no, never! A mother's present; impossible, dear Jessie!
Jessie begged and prayed; she had grown really attached to Lady
Vandrift, she said; but the curate wouldn't hear of it.
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