'You will have the satisfaction of feeling that you have behaved in this matter as a man of the strictest honour.'
'I am very glad, considering all things, that I have not had the rubies in my own possession, even for a single hour.'
'That is nothing: of course they would have been safe in your hands. Well, Alec, I am sorry for you. But you are young: you are clever: you are succeeding hand over hand: pay a little more attention to your daily expenses, put down your horses and live for a few years quietly, and you will make your own fortune—ay, a fortune greater far than was contained in this unlucky case of precious stones.'
'I suppose you will renew your search, now, after the descendants of the second daughter?'
'I suppose we must. Do not forget that if there are no descendants—or, which is much the same thing, if we cannot find them in a reasonable time, I shall advise my client to transfer the jewels to the grandson of the third daughter. And I hope, my dear boy—I hope, I say, that we may never find those descendants.'
Alec departed, a little cheered by the consolation that he had passed on the disappointment to another.
He went home, and found his wife in the studio, apparently waiting for him. There were dark rings round her eyes. She had been weeping. Since the storm they had not spoken to each other.
He sat down at his table—it was perfectly bare of papers—no sign of any work at all upon it—and waited for her to begin.
'Is it not time,' she asked, 'that this should cease? You have reproached me enough, I think. Remember, we are on the same level. But, whatever I have done, it was done for your sake. Whatever you have done, was done for your own sake. Now, is there going to be an end to this situation?'
