They dined, to accommodate this gentleman, at what Selina called an unearthly hour--four o'clock; and it was evening before she could get to Lady Sarah Hope's. Alice, looking ill, was alone in the drawing-room, having begged to be excused going down to dinner. On a table in the back room lay some of Lady Sarah's jewels; valuable gems. Selina privately wished they were hers. She had to take her departure as she came, for Alice could not help her. A curiously mysterious matter connected with these jewels has to be related. It ought to come in here; but it may be better to defer it, not to interfere with the sequence of events connected with this chapter. Nothing further could be done that evening, and Selina went to rest betimes--eleven o'clock--disappointing two or three entertainments that were languishing for her presence: but she had no heart that night. To rest! It was a mockery of the word, for she had become thoroughly frightened. She passed the night turning and tossing from side to side; and when morning came, and she arose, it was with trembling limbs and a fevered brain. Her whole anxiety was to make up this money, three hundred pounds; hoping that it would prove a stop-gap for the milliner, and stave off that dreaded threat of application to Oscar. What was to come afterwards, and how in the world further stop-gaps would be supplied, she did not now glance at. That evil seemed a hundred miles off, compared with this one. A faint idea had been looming through her mind; possibly led to by what she had seen at Lady Sarah Hope's. At the commencement it had neither shape nor form, but by midday it had acquired one, and was entertained. She had heard of such things as pledging jewels: she was sure she had heard that even noble ladies, driven to a pinch, so disposed of them. Mrs. Dalrymple locked her bedroom door, reached out her ornaments, and laid them in a heap on the bed. She began to estimate their value: what they had cost to buy, as nearly as she could remember and judge, amounted to fully five hundred pounds. They were not paid for, but that was nothing. She supposed she might be able to borrow four hundred upon them: and she decided to do it. Some few, others, had belonged to her mother. Then, if that cormorant of a French marchande de modes refused to be pacified with a small sum, she should have a larger one to offer her. Yes, and get the things for the wedding-breakfast besides.