"They _must_ be got back!" she exclaimed. "I _must_ have them back by fair means or foul. I can't face Aunt Agatha, now that she knows, and can't appear at her ball without them. O! Mr. Stanmore, what shall I do? Do you think Rose and Brilliant's would _lend_ them to me only for one night?"

d.i.c.k began to suspect something, began to surmise that this young lady had been "raising the wind," as he called it, and to wonder for what mysterious purpose she could want so large a sum as had necessitated the sacrifice of her most valuable jewels; but she seemed in such distress that he felt this was no time for explanation.

"Do!" he repeated cheerfully, and walking to the window that he might not seem to notice her trouble. "Why do as I wish you had done all through. Leave everything to _me_. I was going to say 'trust me,' but I don't want to be trusted. I only want to be made use of."

Her better nature was conquering her fast.

"But indeed I _will_ trust you," she murmured. "You deserve to be trusted. You are so kind, so good, so true. You will despise me, I know--very likely hate me, and never come to see me again; but I don't care--I can't help it. Sit down, and I will tell you everything."

He did not blush nor stammer now, his voice was very firm, and he stood up like a man.

"Miss Bruce," said he, "Maud--yes, I'm not afraid to call you Maud--I won't hear another word. I don't want to be told anything. Whatever you have done makes no difference to me. Some day, perhaps, you'll remember how I believed in you. In the meantime tell my mother that the diamonds will be back in time for her ball. How late it is! I must be off like a shot. Those horses will be perfectly wild with waiting.

I'm coming to dinner. Good-bye!"

He hurried away without another look, and Maud, burying her head in the sofa-cushions, burst out crying, as she had not cried since she was a child.

"He's too good for me!--he's too good for me!" she repeated, between the sobs she tried hard to keep back. "How wicked and vile I should be to throw him over! He's too good for me!--too good for me by far!"

CHAPTER XII

"A CRUEL PARTING"

The phaeton-horses went off like wildfire, d.i.c.k driving as if he was drunk. Omnibus-cads looked after him with undisguised admiration, and hansom cabmen, catching the enthusiasm of pace, found themselves actually wishing they were gentlemen's servants, to have their beer found, and sit behind such steppers as those!

The white foam stood on flank and shoulder when the pair were pulled up at Rose and Brilliant's door.

d.i.c.k bustled in with so agitated an air that an experienced shopman instantly lifted the gla.s.s from a tray containing the usual a.s.sortment of wedding-rings.

"I'm come about some diamonds," panted the customer, casting a wistful glance towards these implements of coercion the while. "A set of diamonds--very valuable--left here by a lady--a young lady--I want them back again."

He looked about him helplessly; nevertheless, the shopman, himself a married man, became at once less commiserating, and more confidential.

"Diamonds!" he repeated. "Let me see--yes, sir--quite so--I think I recollect. Perhaps you'll step in and speak to our princ.i.p.al. Mind your hat, if you please, sir--yes, sir--this way, sir."

So saying, he ushered Mr. Stanmore through gla.s.s doors into a neat little room at the back, where sat a bald, smiling personage in sober attire, something between that of a provincial master of hounds and a low-church clergyman, whose cool composure, as it struck d.i.c.k at the time, afforded a ludicrous contrast to his own fuss and agitation.

"_My_ name is Rose, sir," said the placid man. "Pray take a seat."

n.o.body can "take a seat" under feelings of strong excitement. d.i.c.k grasped the proffered chair by the back.

"Mr. Rose," he began, "what I have to say to you goes no farther."

"O dear, no!--certainly not--Mr. Stanmore, I believe? I hope I see you well, sir. This is my _private_ room, you understand, sir. Whatever affairs we transact here are _in_ private. How can I accommodate you, Mr. Stanmore?" d.i.c.k looked so eager, the placid man was persuaded he must want money.

"There's a young lady," said d.i.c.k, plunging at his subject, "who left her diamonds here last week--quite a young lady--very handsome. Did she give you her name?"

Mr. Rose smiled and shook his head benevolently. "If any jewels of value were left with _us_, you may be sure we satisfied ourselves of the party's name and address. Perhaps I can help you, Mr. Stanmore.

Can you favour me with the date?"

"Yes, I can," answered d.i.c.k, "and the name too. It's no use humbugging about it. Miss Bruce was the lady's name. There! Now she wants her jewels back again. She's changed her mind."

Mr. Rose took a ledger off the table, and ran his finger down its columns. "Quite correct, sir," said he, stopping at a particular entry. "You are acquainted with the circ.u.mstances, of course."

d.i.c.k nodded, esteeming it little breach of confidence to look as if he knew all about it.

"There is no difficulty whatever," continued the bland Mr. Rose.

"Happy to oblige Miss Bruce. Happy to oblige _you_. We shall charge a small sum for commission. Nothing more--O dear, no! Have them cleaned up? Certainly, sir; and you may depend on their being sent home in time. At your convenience, Mr. Stanmore. No hurry, sir. You can write me your cheque for the amount. Perhaps I'd better draw out a little memorandum. We shall make a mere nominal charge for cleaning."

d.i.c.k glanced over the memorandum, including its nominal charge for cleaning, which, perhaps from ignorance, did not strike him as being extraordinarily low. He was somewhat startled at the sum total, but when this gentleman made up his mind, it was not easy to turn him from an object in view.

The steppers, hardly cool, were hurried straight off to his bankers', to be driven, after their owner's interview with one of the partners, back again to the great emporium of their kind at Tattersall's.

A woman who wants to make a sacrifice parts with her jewels, a man sells his horses. Honour to each, for each offers up what is nearest and dearest to the heart.

d.i.c.k Stanmore lived no more within his income than other people. To get back these diamonds he would have to raise a considerable sum.

There was nothing else to be done. The hunters must go: nay, the whole stud, phaeton-horses, hacks, and all. Yet d.i.c.k marched into the office to secure stalls for an early date, with a bright eye and a smiling face. He was proving, to _himself_, at least, how well he loved her.

The first person he met in the yard was Lord Bearwarden. That n.o.bleman, though knowing him but slightly, had rather a liking for Stanmore, cemented by a certain good run they once saw in company, when each approved of the other's straightforward riding and unusual forbearance towards hounds.

"There's a nice horse in the boxes," said my lord; "looks very like your sort, Stanmore, and they say he'll go cheap, though he's quite sound."

"Thanks," answered d.i.c.k. "But I'm all the other way. Been taking stalls. Going to sell."

"Draft?" asked his lordship, who did not waste words.

"All of them," replied the other. "Even the hacks, saddlery, clothing, in short, the whole plant, and without reserve--going to give it up--at any rate for a time."

"Sorry for that," replied Bearwarden, adding, courteously, "Can I offer you a lift? I'm going your way. Indeed, I'm going to call at your mother's. Shall I find the ladies at home?"

"A little later you will," said honest, unsuspecting d.i.c.k, who had not yet learned the lesson that teaches it is not worth while to trust or mistrust any of the s.e.x. "They'll be charmed to give you some tea. I'm off to Croydon to look over my poor screws before they're sold, and break it to my groom."

"That's a right good fellow," thought Lord Bearwarden, "and not a bad connection if I was fool enough to marry the dark girl, after all." So he called out to d.i.c.k, who had one foot on the step of his phaeton--

"I say, Stanmore, come and dine with us on the 11th; we've got two or three hunting fellows, and we can go on together afterwards to your mother's ball."

"All right," said Stanmore, and bowled away in the direction of Croydon at the rate of fourteen miles an hour. If the horses were to be sold, people might just as well be made aware of the cla.s.s of animal he kept. Though the sacrifice involved was considerable, it would be wise to lessen it by all judicious means in his power.

_How_ great a sacrifice he scarcely felt till he arrived at his country stables.

d.i.c.k Stanmore had been fonder of hunting than any other pursuit in the world, ever since he went out for the first time on a Shetland pony, and came home with his nose bleeding, at five years old.

The spin and "whizz" of his reel, the rush of a brown mountain stream with its fringe of silver birch and stunted alder, the white side of a leaping salmon, and the gasp of that n.o.ble fish towed deftly into the shallows at last, afforded him a natural and unmixed pleasure. He loved the heather dearly, the wild hillside, the keen pure air, the steady setters, the flap and cackle of the rising grouse, the ringing shot that laid him low, born in the purple, and fated there to die.

Nor, when corn-fields were cleared, and partridges, almost as swift as bullets and as numerous as locusts, were driven to and fro across the open, was his aim to be foiled by a flight little less rapid than the shot that arrested it. With a rifle in his hand, a general knowledge of the surrounding forest, and a couple of gillies, give him the wind of a royal stag feeding amongst his hinds, and despite the feminine jealousy and instinctive vigilance of the latter, an hour's stalk would put the lord of the hills at the mercy of d.i.c.k Stanmore. In all these sports he was a proficient, from all of them he derived a keen gratification, but fox-hunting was his pa.s.sion and his delight.