Both the men who accompanied her up to town were perplexed. The tears which rose to her eyes, the unmistakable trouble in her expression, the look of anxiety and sorrow were genuine; there was no doubt about it. Lord Alberic, who had always been very cold to her, wondered if he had done her injustice all these years, and Hurstmanceaux, who knew her better, thought: “She counted on having a rattling good time on the succession, and she’s really sorry that little blackguard is dead.” But it was a matter concealed from almost everyone, and of which neither family dreamed, which was racking her nerves like neuralgia. It was the destination of the big diamond, the roc’s egg, which had been her ostensible object in marrying Cocky. When she thought of that jewel, high-couraged and mettlesome and thoroughbred though she was, a sickly chill passed over her, and she shuddered, as she looked at her brother’s profile in the faint light of the railway-lamp, as the train sped through the night. For she had, in vulgar parlance, pawned the famous jewel. That is to say, that being in great want of money, of a sum so large that no one she could appeal to would be likely or even able to give it to her, she had borrowed that sum, four years previously, on the roc’s egg, of a great jeweler, who had caused to be made for her such a precise counterfeit in paste that no detection was possible by the naked eye. The famous jeweler was a Pole by birth, a Parisian by long residence and habit; he had dropped his own name, which had been politically compromised in his earliest manhood and for forty years had traded in the city of his adoption as a naturalized Frenchman, known as M. Boris Beaumont. His riches were now great; his taste in and knowledge of gems were unerring; and he had that note of fashion without which a great tradesman in Paris is an Apollo without a bow or a lute. All the great ladies were his clients; without something of Beaumont’s no bridal _corbeille_ was well furnished; his exquisite trifles were the most distinguished of New Year’s gifts. He was deferential, good-natured, adroit; in his trade he was absolutely to be depended on; if Beaumont told you a stone was good, you might buy it without further warranty, and you would never repent; the price of it was high, even very high; but if you made that objection he would say briefly with a little shrug: “_Que voulezvous? Ça vient de moi!_” Behind his very elegant shop was a conservatory, behind the conservatory was a little salon where his patronesses could have ices or tea according to the season, and read Gyp’s last delightful persiflage. In that little salon many a secret has been confided to Beaumont; many a dilemma been exposed to him.