'This cannot be, Countess; your father was a diamond merchant, and knew perfectly the false from the true. He could not have sent your mother what was worthless. The stones must have been changed later.'
'They were in my mother's keeping,' said Mirelle.
That was answer enough. Her father might be guilty of a mean act; her mother, never.
Herring had his own opinion, but he had the prudence not to express it.
'But enough about this,' Mirelle went on. 'I only asked for this reason. If you had sold my stones, supposing them to be real, and had used them to relieve me and the Trampleasures in the moment of our need, when we had not a house to cover our heads, I should have been very, very thankful.'
She said this with an involuntary sigh, and with such an intense expression of earnestness that Herring caught the words up, and said eagerly:—
'Do you mean this? Do you mean that you would have thanked me if I had sold your diamonds and used the proceeds to relieve your necessities?'
'Yes, I do mean this.'
'Why did you not ask me to do this?'
'Because I supposed the stones were paste, and worthless.'