She left her at last to die
alone and uncared for. I reached my wife to find her dying of a fever from
which Lady Carwitchet and her crew had fled. She was raving in delirium,
and died without recognizing me. Some trouble she had been in which I must
never know oppressed her. At the very last she roused from a long stupor
and spoke to the nurse. 'Tell him to get the sapphire back--she stole it.
She has robbed my child.' Those were her last words. The nurse understood
no English, and treated them as wandering; but _I_ heard them, and knew
she was sane when she spoke."
"What did you do?"
"What could I? I saw Lady Carwitchet, who laughed at me, and defied me to
make her confess or disgorge. I took the pendant to more than one eminent
jeweler on pretense of having the setting seen to, and all have examined
and admired without giving a hint of there being anything wrong. I allowed
a celebrated mineralogist to see it; he gave no sign--"
"Perhaps they are right and we are wrong."
"No, no. Listen. I heard of an old Dutchman celebrated for his imitations.
I went to him, and he told me at once that he had been allowed by
Montanaro to copy the Valdez--setting and all--for the Paris Exhibition. I
showed him this, and he claimed it for his own work at once, and pointed
out his private mark upon it. You must take your magnifier to find it; a
Greek Beta.
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