dy
towards the larger reception rooms.

"Indeed I hope so," sighed Juliette. "When times became so troublous in
France after my dear father's death, his confessor and friend, the Abbe
Foucquet, took charge of all my mother's jewels for me. He said they
would be safe with the ornaments of his own little church at Boulogne.
He feared no sacrilege, and thought they would be most effectually
hidden there, for no one would dream of looking for the Marny diamonds
in the crypt of a country church."

Marguerite said nothing in reply. Whatever her own doubts might be upon
such a subject, it could serve no purpose to disturb the young girl's
serenity.

"Dear Abbe Foucquet," said Juliette after a while, "his is the kind of
devotion which I feel sure will never be found under the new regimes of
anarchy and of so-called equality. He would have laid down his life for
my father or for me. And I know that he would never part with the jewels
which I entrusted to his care, whilst he had breath and strength to
defend them."

Marguerite would have wished to pursue the subject a little further.
It was very pathetic to witness poor Juliette's hopes and confidences,
which she felt sure would never be realised.

Lady Blakeney knew so much of what was going on in France just now:
spoliations, confiscations, official thefts, open robberies, all in the
name of equality, of fraternity and of patriotism. She knew nothing,
of course, of the Abbe Foucquet, but the tender little picture of the
devoted old man, painted by Juliette's words, had appealed strongly to
her sympathetic heart.

Instinct and knowledge of the political aspect of France told her that
by entrusting valuable family jewels to the old Abbe, Juliette had most
unwittingly placed the man she so much trusted in danger of persecution
at the hands of a government which did not even admit the legality of
family possessions. However, there was neither time nor opportunity now
to enlarge upon the subject. Marguerite resolved to recur to it a little
later, when she would be alone with Mlle. de Marny, and above all
when she could take counsel with her husband as to the best means of
recovering the young girl's property for her, whilst relieving a devoted
old man from the dangerous responsibility which he had so selflessly
undertaken.

In the meanwhile the two women had reached the first of the long line
of state apartments wherein the brilliant fete was to take place.
The staircase a