She waited all day in the same state of fear in the face of this frightful disaster.
Loisel returned in the evening pallid and haggard. No news as yet.
"You must write to your friend that you have broken the clasp of the necklace and are having it repaired. That will give us time to look around."
At the end of the week they had lost all hope, and Loisel, to whom it seemed this care and trouble had added five years to his age, said:
"We must try and replace the jewels."
The following day they went to the jeweler whose name was stamped inside the case. He consulted his books: "I did not sell that necklace, madame, I only furnished the case."
Then they went from jeweler to jeweler, racking their memories to find the same, both of them sick with grief and agony. At last, in a small shop in the Palais Royal, they found one which seemed to them like the one they had lost. With beating hearts they asked the price.
Forty thousand francs; but they could have it for 36,000 francs.
They asked the jeweler not to dispose of it for three days, and he also promised to take it back at 34,000 francs if the first one was found before the end of February.