Alice persisted: and Frances at length conceded the point, though with much grumbling. The carriage was still at the door, for Frances had desired that it should wait, and Alice hastily dressed herself and went down to it, without speaking to Lady Sarah. The footman was closing the door upon her, when out flew Frances.
"Alice, I have made up my mind to go with you; I cannot keep my patience until you are back again. I can sit in the carriage whilst you go in, you know. Lady Livingstone will be two feet higher from today—that the world should have been gladdened with a spectacle of Lady Frances Chenevix waiting humbly at her door."
They drove off. Frances talked incessantly on the road, but Alice was silent: she was deliberating what she should say, and was nerving herself to the task. Lady Livingstone was at home; and Alice, sending in her card, was conducted to her presence, leaving Lady Frances in the carriage.
Frances had described her to be as thin as a whipping-post, with a red nose: and Alice found Lady Livingstone answer to it very well. Sir Jasper, who was also present, was much older than his wife, and short and stout; a good-natured looking man, with a wig on the top of his head.
Alice, refined and sensitive, scarcely knew how she opened her subject, but she was met in a different manner from what she had expected. The knight and his wife were really worthy people, as Mrs. Cadogan had said: but the latter had a mania for getting into "high life and high-lived company:" a feat she would never be able thoroughly to accomplish. They listened to Alice's tale with courtesy, and at length with interest.
"You will readily conceive the nightmare this has been to me," panted Alice, for her emotion was great. "The bracelet was under my charge, and it disappeared in this extraordinary way. All the trouble it has been productive of to me I am not at liberty to tell you, but it has certainly helped to shorten my life."
"You look very ill," observed Lady Livingstone, with sympathy.
"I am worse than I look. I am going into the grave rapidly. Others less sensitive, or with stronger health, might have battled successfully with the distress and annoyance; I could not. I shall die in greater peace if this unhappy affair can be cleared. Should it prove to be the same bracelet, we may be able to trace out how it was lost."
Lady Livingstone left the room and returned with the diamond bracelet. She held it out to Miss Dalrymple, and the colour rushed into Alice's poor wan face at the gleam of the diamonds: for she believed she recognized them.
"But, stay," she said, drawing back her hand as she was about to touch it: "do not give it me just yet. If it be the one we lost, the letters 'S. H.' are scratched irregularly on the back of the middle star. Perhaps you will first look if they are there, Lady Livingstone."