’"But you’ll ask about my mysterious dame in the new bonnet and velvet mantle; she was sitting on a stool at the counter, not buying, but evidently selling a quantity of stones and trinkets which she had in a card-box, and the man was picking them up one by one, and, I suppose, valuing them.  I was near enough to see such a darling little pearl cross, with at least half a dozen really good pearls in it, and had begun to covet them for my set, when the lady glanced over my shoulder, and she knew me—­in fact, we knew one another—­and who do you think she was?  Well—­you’ll not guess in a week, and I can’t wait so long; so I may as well tell you at once—­she was that horrid old Mademoiselle Blassemare whom you pointed out to me at Elverston; and I never forgot her face since—­nor she, it seems, mine, for she turned away very quickly, and when I next saw her, her veil was down."’

’Did not you tell me, Maud, that you had lost your pearl cross while that dreadful Madame de la Rougierre was here?’

‘Yes; but—­’

’I know; but what has she to do with Mademoiselle de Blassemare, you were going to say—­they are one and the same person.’

‘Oh, I perceive,’ answered I, with that dim sense of danger and dismay with which one hears suddenly of an enemy of whom one has lost sight for a time.

’I’ll write and tell Georgie to buy that cross.  I wager my life it is yours,’ said Lady Knollys, firmly.

The servants, indeed, made no secret of their opinion of Madame de la Rougierre, and frankly charged her with a long list of larcenies.  Even Anne Wixted, who had enjoyed her barren favour while the gouvernante was here, hinted privately that she had bartered a missing piece of lace belonging to me with a gipsy pedlar, for French gloves and an Irish poplin.

‘And so surely as I find it is yours, I’ll set the police in pursuit.’

‘But you must not bring me into court,’ said I, half amused and half alarmed.

‘No occasion, my dear; Mary Quince and Mrs. Rusk can prove it perfectly.’

‘And why do you dislike her so very much?’ I asked.

Cousin Monica leaned back in her chair, and searched the cornice from corner to corner with upturned eyes for the reason, and at last laughed a little, amused at herself.

’Well, really, it is not easy to define, and, perhaps, it is not quite charitable; but I know I hate her, and I know, you little hypocrite, you hate her as much as I;’ and we both laughed a little.

‘But you must tell me all you know of her history.’

‘Her history?’ echoed she.  ’I really know next to nothing about it; only that I used to see her sometimes about the place that Georgina mentions, and there were some unpleasant things said about her; but you know they may be all lies.  The worst I know of her is her treatment of you, and her robbing the desk’—­(Cousin Monica always called it her robbery)—­’and I think that’s enough to hang her.  Suppose we go out for a walk?’