"I surely cannot know anyone in Jersey," said Lady Mabel, in languid wonderment. "It is an altogether impossible place. Nobody in society goes there. It sounds almost as disreputable as Boulogne."
"You'd better open the packet," said Rorie, with a quiver in his voice.
"Perhaps it is from some of your friends," speculated Mabel.
She broke the seal, and tore the cover off a small morocco case.
"What a lovely pair of earrings!" she exclaimed.
Each eardrop was a single turquoise, almost as large, and quite as clear in colour, as a hedge-sparrow's egg. The setting was Roman, exquisitely artistic.
"Now I can forgive anyone for sending me such jewellery as that," said Lady Mabel. "It is not the sort of thing one sees in every jeweller's shop."
Rorie looked at the blue stones with rueful eyes. He knew them well. He had seen them contrasted with ruddy chestnut hair, and the whitest skin in Christendom—or at any rate the whitest he had ever seen, and a man's world can be but the world he knows.
"There is a letter," said Lady Mabel. "Now I shall find out all about my mysterious Jersey friend."
She read the letter aloud.