"Not at home, dear, certainly; and I never go out," the wife answered, with the faintest touch of reproachfulness. "I am very fond of it, though, for your sister's sake. It was so kind of her to bring it to me, and such a new thing for me to have a present. But you are welcome to it, Austin, if you really want it."
"If I really want it! Do you suppose I should be mean enough to ask you for it if I didn't? I shouldn't so much care about it, you see, only I am to meet the man to-morrow evening at dinner, and I can't face him without the money. So if you'll look the thing out some time to-day, Bess, I'll take it down to the Quai between this and to-morrow afternoon, and get the business over."
Thus it was that George Fairfax, strolling into Mrs. Lovel's sitting-room that afternoon while Austin was out, happened to find her seated in a pensive attitude, with an open work-box before her and Clarissa's locket in her hand. It was a shabby battered old box, but had been for years the repository of all Bessie's treasures.
She had kept the locket there, looking at it very often, and wondering if she would ever be able to wear it—if Austin would take her to a theatre, for instance, or give a little dinner at home instead of abroad, for once in a way, to some of the men whose society absorbed so much of his time.
There was no hope of this now. Once gone from her hand; the treasure would return no more. She knew that very well and was indulging her grief by a farewell contemplation of the trinket, when Mr. Fairfax came into the room.
The flash of the diamonds caught his quick eye.
"What a pretty locket you've got there, Mrs. Austin!" he said, as he shook hands with her. "A new-year's gift from Austin, I suppose."
"No, it was my sister-in-law, Mrs. Granger, who gave it me," Bessie answered, with a sigh.
He was interested in it immediately, but was careful not to betray his interest. Mrs. Lovel put it into his hands. She was proud of it even in this last hour of possession. "Perhaps you'd like to look at it," she said. "It's got her 'air inside."
Yes, there was a circlet of the dark brown hair he knew so well, and the two works, "From Clarissa."