The matter was, that Mr. Edwin Fennel had obtained possession of the chain and locket more than a month ago. Silly Nancy confessed with trembling lips that she feared he had pledged it.
Or sold it, thought Lavinia. She felt terribly vexed and indignant. “I suppose, Ann, it will end in his grasping everything,” she said, “and starving us out of house and home: myself, at any rate.”
“He expects money from his brother James, and then he will get it back for me,” twittered Nancy.
Monsieur Jules Carimon was not able to come to the table d’hôte; his duties that night would detain him at the college until seven o’clock. It happened so on occasion. Colonel Selby sat at one end of their party, Lavinia at the other; Mary Carimon and Nancy between them. A gentleman was on the other side of Lavinia whom she did not particularly notice; and, upon his asking the waiter for something, his voice seemed to strike upon her memory. Turning, she saw that it was the tall Englishman they had seen on the pier some months before in the shepherd’s plaid, the lawyer named Lockett. He recognized her face at the same moment, and they entered into conversation.
“Are you making any stay at Sainteville?” she inquired.
“For a few days. I must be back in London on Monday morning.”
Colonel Selby’s attention was attracted to the speakers. “What, is it you, Lockett?” he exclaimed.
Mr. Lockett bent forward to look beyond Lavinia and Madame Carimon. “Why, colonel, are you here?” he cried. So it was evident that they knew one another.
But you can’t talk very much across people at a table d’hôte; and Lavinia and Mr. Lockett were, so to say, left together again. She put a question to him, dropping her voice to a whisper.
“Did you ever find that person you were looking for?”