"Accompanied by my uncle, I went this morning to a jeweller's shop in the Rue de la Paix to order the bracelet you know of to be re-made for my mother. I had not previously undone the packet containing the gold band and the turquoises, which you sealed up and kept in your desk for me, since the day you gave it to me at Homburg. The things were wrapped up in letter-paper, you will remember. I opened the packet on the counter of the jeweller's shop, shook the turquoises into a box he handed me for the purpose, and was holding up the gold band for him to examine, when my uncle, who was looking at the paper I had laid down, suddenly called to me, and pointing to some writing on it--mere memoranda, apparently, of articles to be purchased (I enclose a correct copy)--exclaimed, 'That is Arthur's writing!' I saw at once that it was his writing, and determined to apply to you in the first place for information on the matter. It is now clear that my cousin has passed under another name than his own, and that Routh and perhaps you have known him. There is a date, too, upon the paper--10th of April of this year. You took the paper out of the lower division of your desk. You may be able to tell us all that we have so long been anxious to know, at once. Pray answer this without delay. I think it best not to write to Routh, because my uncle and he are almost strangers, and also, dear Mrs. Routh, because it comes naturally to me to address myself to you. How strange that all this time you and Routh should have known Arthur, and I, living in intimacy with you both, should have been in a manner seeking him! You will, no doubt, be able to tell us everything without an hour's delay; but, in any case, we shall be in London in a week, and shall have Arthur's portrait to show you. I am sure this letter is very ill expressed, but I am still bewildered at the strangeness of the occurrence. Write at once. My room is No. 80. "Always yours affectionately, "George Dallas. "P. S. The jeweller of the Rue de la Paix is a jewel among his tribe. He undertakes to replace the diamonds, and, as far as I can judge--to be sure it's only a little way--with stones just as fine as those I sold at A--, for a third less than the money his Hebrew Dutch _confrère_ gave me. I had a mind to tell him the value of the original diamonds, but I didn't--the honestest of the jewellers is only human, and it might tempt him to raise the price and not the value. But I think he recognized a master-mind in my uncle." CHAPTER XXX. MOVING ON.