“You have made no complaint, or published no advertisements for them?”
“I have kept it absolutely secret. Father Blair insisted that I should do so.”
“They were valuable, these jewels?”
“The rings were, intrinsically, but what I most valued was the necklace of rose-topazes. They were the Grosvenor topazes.”
“A family relic?”
“Not my own family. My husband’s mother left them to me. They came down to her from her grandmother, Camilla Grosvenor.”
“You speak that name as if it should be recognizable by me.”
“Perhaps it would, if you were a New Englander. She was rather a famous person in her time. C. L. Elliott painted her—one of his finest portraits, I believe. And—and she was remarkable in other respects.”
“Would you mind being more specific? It isn’t mere curiosity on my part.”
“Why, my uncle could have told you more. He knows all about the Grosvenors. My own knowledge of Camilla Grosvenor is merely family tradition. She was a woman of great force of character, and great personal attraction, I believe, though she was not exactly beautiful. When she was still under thirty she became the leader of a band of mystics and star-worshipers. I believe that she became infatuated with one of them, a young German, and that there was an elopement by water. This I remember, at least: her body washed ashore on the coast not very far from Hedgerow House.”