A conflict woke up in the mind of John Herring. Should he tell her all? Should he say that this was not true—he had used her money, not his own? If at that moment he had done so, that event which was to trouble and darken both their futures would not have occurred. Herring was young; he was without strength of character to decide in a moment what to do. He let the occasion slip. He would wait; the revelation could be made later. He did not understand the supreme importance of the moment. He did not realise to what Mirelle’s words led. ’Countess,’ he said—— ’No,’ she interrupted hastily, ’do not speak. You must let me say what I want. Il me faut me décharger le coeur. If I had been a nun at the head of an orphanage, I would have said, Give all, and God on high will repay you. Give; no one will deny you the right, and I will accept with joy. I will be your almoner to the little ones of Christ. But, alas! it is not so. I can spend what you provide only on myself, and I do not find that this is right. In the world is one fashion, in religion is another fashion. You see well yourself it cannot be.’ ’Countess, will you allow me to explain?’ ’No; I need no explanation. One only question I ask, for there is one thing I desire greatly to know. That neck-chain and that coronet of diamonds, have you sold them?’ ’No, I have them yet. You intrusted them to me.’ ’They are false. Do you know the brooch you sent me for Orange was all of false stones—of paste? I doubt not the rest of the set is the same. Did you know this?’ ’Certainly not. I have not examined and proved the stones. I had no suspicion that they were not genuine.’ ’My father sent the set as a present to my mother,’ said Mirelle, ’and they were of paste.’ Herring was surprised. ’This cannot be, Countess; your father was a diamond merchant, and knew perfectly the false from the true. He could not have sent your mother what was worthless. The stones must have been changed later.’ ’They were in my mother’s keeping,’ said Mirelle. That was answer enough. Her father might be guilty of a mean act; her mother, never. Herring had his own opinion, but he had the prudence not to express it. ’But enough about this,’ Mirelle went on. ’I only asked for this reason. If you had sold my stones, supposing them to be real, and had used them to relieve me and the Trampleasures in the moment of our need, when we had not a house to cover our heads, I should have been very, very thankful.’ She said this with an involuntary sigh, and with such an intense expression of earnestness that Herring caught the words up, and said eagerly:— ’Do you mean this? Do you mean that you would have thanked me if I had sold your diamonds and used the proceeds to relieve your necessities?’ ’Yes, I do mean this.’ ’Why did you not ask me to do this?’ ’Because I supposed the stones were paste, and worthless.’