"Curls," muttered Jaspar; "she has not worn curls since the colonel died. She may have put them on again to please that infernal Captain Carroll. Twenty-six years old, you think?"
"She may have been younger. Her features were terribly mangled," and Mr. Dalhousie cast a penetrating glance at Jaspar, as though he would read out the beatings of his black heart.
Jaspar considered again the description, and, though it did not correspond to his niece's, his anxiety had contributed to warp his judgment. He was very willing to believe the Chalmetta's fatal disaster had forever removed the only obstacle to the gratification of his ambition, and the only source of future insecurity. He paced the room, muttering, in his abstraction, sundry broken phrases.
Dalhousie watched him, and endeavored to obtain the purport of his disjointed soliloquy. A stranger, without some strong motive, could scarcely have had so much interest in him as he appeared to have.
"Had she any jewels—ornaments of any kind?" asked Dalhousie, after the silence had grown disagreeable to him.
"She had," replied Jaspar, stopping suddenly in his perambulation of the room, and speaking with an eagerness which betrayed his anxiety to obtain more evidence. "Were any found upon her person?"
"You are a man of honor, Mr. Dumont, and, if I disclose to you a thoughtless indiscretion of my own, you will not, of course, expose me?" said Dalhousie, with, hesitation, and apparent want of confidence.
"Of course not," replied Jaspar, impatiently. "What has this to do with the matter?"
"Did your niece wear a ring?"
"Yes, a mourning ring."