“That is true, madam; and the description given to me this evening of your late husband is a case in point; for, although it agrees in many things—in most things—there is some discrepancy. Did your husband never give you the slightest hint about a set of diamonds that he had once lost?”
“Never; but I can account for that by the fact, that he never alluded to anything that had at any time given him pain or displeasure, if he could avoid it.”
“There is but the one clue, then, that I spoke of, namely, the ring that belonged to the set of diamonds. Did your husband ever possess—”
“The ring!” exclaimed Mrs Tipps and Netta in the same breath. “Yes, he had a diamond ring—”
They stopped abruptly, and looked at each other in distress, for they remembered that the ring had been lost.
“Pray, what sort of ring is it? Describe it to me,” said Dr Noble.
Netta carefully described it and, as she did so, the visitor’s countenance brightened.
“That’s it; that’s it exactly; that must be it for I remember it well, and it corresponds in all respects with—my dear ladies, let me see the ring without delay.”
“Alas! sir,” said Mrs Tipps, sadly, “the ring is lost!”
A look of blank dismay clouded poor Dr Noble’s visage as he heard these words, but he quickly questioned the ladies as to the loss, and became more hopeful on bearing the details.