"No, sir, I will not pass on," cried the enraged colonel, who had not rightly caught the word business. "Or if I do pass on, it will only be to warn your guests to take care of their jewellery. So, sir," he added, turning to his nephew, "you can come back, can you, when the proceeds of your theft are spent! You have been starring it in Calais, I hear. How long did the bracelet last you to live upon?"
"Sir," answered Gerard, with a pale face, "it has been starving rather than starring. I asserted my innocence at the time, Colonel Hope, and I repeat it now."
"Innocence!" ironically repeated the colonel, turning to all sides of the hall, as if he took delight in parading the details of the unfortunate past. "The trinkets were spread out on a table in Lady Sarah's own house: you came stealthily into it—after having been forbidden it for another fault—went stealthily into the room, and the next minute the diamond bracelet was missing. It was owing to my confounded folly in listening to a parcel of women that I did not bring you to trial at the time; I have only once regretted not doing it, and that has been ever since. A little wholesome correction at the Penitentiary might have made an honest man of you. Good-night, Sir Francis; if you encourage him in your house, you don't have me in it."
Now another gentleman had entered and heard this: some servants also heard it. Colonel Hope, who firmly believed in his nephew's guilt, turned off, peppery and indignant; his wife had gone upstairs; and Gerard, giving vent to sundry unnephew-like expletives, strode after him. The colonel made a dash into a street cab, and Gerard walked towards the City.
The evening went on. Lady Frances Chenevix, her dress all right again, at least to appearance, was waiting to regain breath, after a whirling waltz. Next to her stood a lady who had also been whirling. Frances did not know her.
"You are quite exhausted: we kept it up too long," said the gentleman in attendance on the stranger. "Sit down. What can I get you?"
"My fan: there it is. Thank you. Nothing else."
"What an old creature to dance herself down!" thought Frances. "She's forty, if she's a day."
The lady opened her fan, and, whilst using it, the diamonds of her rich bracelet gleamed right in the eyes of Frances Chenevix. Frances looked at it, and started: she strained her eyes and looked at it again: she bent nearer to it, and became agitated with emotion. If her recollection did not play her false, that was the lost bracelet.
She saw Grace at a distance, and glided up to her. "Who is that lady?" she asked, pointing to the stranger.