"After all, I may as well go at seven in the morning, Mrs. Routh. All my things are packed up already, and it will give me a good start. I might get my business done before Wednesday night, almost, if I'm quick about it; at all events early the following day."
"You might, indeed," said Harriet, in a faint voice.
"There's one little drawback, though, to that scheme," said Dallas. "I haven't the money. They owe me a trifle at the Mercury, and I shall have to wait till to-morrow and get it, and go by Ostend, the swell route. I can't go without it, that's clear."
Harriet looked at him with a wan blank face, in which there was something of weariness, and under it something of menace, but her tone was quite amiable and obliging as she said:
"I think it is a pity to incur both delay and expense by waiting. I have always a little ready money by me, in case of our having to make a move suddenly, or of an illness, or one of the many contingencies which men never think of, and women never forget. You can have it with pleasure. You can return it to me," she said, with a forced smile, "when you send Routh the hundred and forty."
"Thank you," said Dallas. "I shan't mind taking it from you for a day or two, as it is to send help to Routh the sooner. Then I'll go, that's settled, and I had better leave you, for you were tired when I came in, and you must be still more tired now. I shall get back from Amsterdam as quickly as I can, tell Routh, but I see my way to making a few pounds out of the place. They want padding at the Mercury, and I shan't come back by return of post." He had risen now, and had extended his hand towards the bracelet, which lay in its open case on the table. A sudden thought struck Harriet.
"Stop," she said; "I don't think it would do to offer this bracelet in its present shape, anywhere. The form and the setting are too remarkable. It would probably be re-sold entire, and it is impossible to say what harm might come of its being recognized. It must be taken to pieces, and you must offer the diamonds separately for sale. It will make no appreciable difference in the money you will receive, for such work as this is like bookbinding--dear to buy, but never counted in the price when you want to sell."
"What am I to do, then?" asked George, in a dismayed tone. "I could not to take out the diamonds, you know; they are firmly set--see here." He turned the gold band inside out, and showed her the plain flat surface at the back of the diamonds and turquoises.
"Wait a moment," said Harriet. "I think I can assist you in this respect. Do you study the bracelet a bit until I come to you."
She left the room, and remained away for a little time. Dallas stood close by the table, having lowered the gas-burners, and by their light he closely inspected the rivets, the fastenings, and the general form of the splendid ornament he was so anxious to get rid of, idly thinking how well it must have looked on his mother's still beautiful arm, and wondering whether she was likely soon to "be obliged to wear the counterfeit. His back was turned to the door by which Harriet had left the room, so that, when she came softly to the aperture again, he did not perceive her. She carefully noted his attitude, and glided softly in, carrying several small implements in her right hand, and in her left held cautiously behind her back a coat, which she dexterously dropped upon the floor quite unperceived by Dallas, behind the chair on which he had thrown his. She then went up to the table, and showed him a small pair of nippers, a pair of scissors of peculiar form, and a little implement, with which she told him workers in jewelry loosened stones in their setting, and punched them out. Dallas looked with some surprise at the collection, regarding them as unusual items of a lady's paraphernalia, and said, gaily: