“I suppose they are getting on all right,” she said. “I have done nothing for the last two days but try them on. You see, we put them out to three milliners, and they all three seem to reach the same point together, and I start after breakfast, and it takes about two hours at each place. You don't know what trouble you have given me by hurrying things on so unreasonably.” “Well, it is better to have it all done and over,” he said, “than to have the thing hanging over you for a couple of months.” “That is what Mrs. Cunningham says. Now I want to hear about your adventures, and I will call her down.” “Only think, Mrs. Cunningham,” Millicent said presently, with a laugh, after she had returned with her, “this silly boy has actually let the diamonds be stolen from him.” “No, really, Millicent!” “Yes, indeed. Fancy his not being fit to be trusted to look after them! However, I tell him it is of no consequence. I don't know how they went. He would not tell me the story until you came down.” “I am sorry to say it is true, Mrs. Cunningham, although I can assure you that I really cannot blame myself for either carelessness or stupidity. I knew when I started that there was a very great risk, and took what seemed to me every possible precaution, for in addition to Dick Chetwynd going with me, I took two detectives from Bow Street and two prize fighters.” Exclamations of surprise broke from both ladies. “And yet, in spite of all that, these things were stolen,” Millicent said. “How on earth did they do it? I should have sewn them up in my pockets inside my dress.” “I sewed them up in the waistband of my trousers, Millicent, and yet they managed, in spite of us, to steal them. And now I must begin by telling you the whole history of those diamonds, and you will understand why I thought it necessary to take a strong party with me.” He then told them, repeating the history the Colonel had given his father of the diamonds, and the conviction that he had, that he had been followed by Hindoos, and the instructions he had given for the disposal of the bracelet.