On the evening of the previous day, a gentleman whom she never remembered to have seen before, entered the shop, took a seat, and helped himself to a tart. She observed that after a while he looked at her very earnestly, and at length approaching quite close, said, "You were at Covent Garden Theatre last Tuesday evening week?" Mary was struck, as she said, all of a heap, for both Mr. and Mrs. Morris were in the shop, and heard the question. "Oh, no, no! you mistake," she said hurriedly, and feeling at the same time her cheeks kindle into flame. "Nay, but you were though," rejoined the gentleman. And then lowering his voice to a whisper, he said, "And let me advise you, if you would avoid exposure and condign punishment, to restore me the diamond brooch you robbed me of on that evening." Mary screamed with terror, and a regular scene ensued. She was obliged to confess she had told a falsehood in denying she was at the theatre on the night in question, and Mr. Morris after that seemed inclined to believe any thing of her. The gentleman persisted in his charge; but at the same time vehemently iterating his assurance that all he wanted was his property; and it was ultimately decided that Mary's boxes, as well as her person, should be searched. This was done; and to her utter consternation the brooch was found concealed, they said, in a black silk reticule. Denials, asservations, were vain. Mr. Saville identified the brooch, but once more offered to be content with its restoration. This Mr. Morris, a just, stern man, would not consent to, and he went out to summon a police-officer. Before he returned, Mary, by the advice of both her cousin and Mrs. Morris, had fled the house, and hurried in a state of distraction to find me, with what result the reader already knows. "It is a wretched business," I observed to my wife, as soon as Mary Kingsford had retired to rest, at about nine o'clock in the evening. "Like you, I have no doubt of the poor girl's perfect innocence; but how to establish it by satisfactory evidence is another matter. I must take her to Bow Street the day after to-morrow." "Good God, how dreadful! Can nothing be done? What does the prosecutor say the brooch is worth?" "His uncle," he says, "gave a hundred and twenty guineas for it. But that signifies little; for were its worth only a hundred and twenty farthings, compromise is, you know, out of the question." "I did not mean that. Can you show it me? I am a pretty good judge of the value of jewels." "Yes, you can see it." I took it out of the desk in which I had locked it up, and placed it before her. It was a splendid emerald, encircled by large brilliants. My wife twisted and turned it about, holding it in all sorts of lights, and at last said--"I do not believe that either the emerald or the brilliants are real--that the brooch is, in fact, worth twenty shillings intrinsically."