ur to run that one to earth; but afterwards I spent another hour
on my hands and knees before I gave up the search, and, satisfied at
last that I had collected all, sat down on my saddle on the trap-door,
and, by the last flickering light of a candle which I had taken from my
bag, gloated over my treasure--a treasure worthy of fabled Golconda.

Hardly could I believe in its reality, even now. Recalling the jewels
which the English Duke of Buckingham wore on the occasion of his visit
to Paris in 1625, and whereof there was so much talk, I took these to
be as fine, though less in number. They should be worth fifteen thousand
crowns, more or less. Fifteen thousand crowns! And I held them in the
hollow of my hand--I, who was scarcely worth ten thousand sous.

The candle going out cut short my admiration. Left in the dark with
these precious atoms, my first thought was how I might dispose of them
safely; which I did, for the time, by secreting them in the lining of my
boot. My second thought turned on the question how they had come where I
had found them, among the powdered spice and perfumes in Mademoiselle de
Cocheforet's sachet.

A minute's reflection enabled me to come very near the secret, and at
the same time shed a flood of light on several dark places, What Clon
had been seeking on the path between the house and the village, what the
goodwife of the inn had sought among the sweepings of yard and floor,
I knew now the sachet--knew, too, what had caused the marked and sudden
anxiety I had noticed at the Chateau--the loss of this sachet.

And there for a while I came to a check But one step more up the ladder
of thought brought all in view. In a flash I guessed how the jewels had
come to be in the sachet; and that it was not Mademoiselle but M.
de Cocheforet who had mislaid them. I thought this last discovery
so important that I began to pace the room softly, unable, in my
excitement, to remain still.

Doubtless he had dropped the jewels in the hurry of his start from the
inn that night! Doubtless, too, he had carried them in that bizarre
hiding-place for the sake of safety, considering it unlikely that
robbers, if he fell into their hands, would take the sachet from him;
as still less likely that they would suspect it to contain anything
of value. Everywhere it would pass for a love-gift, the work of his
mistress.

Nor did my penetration stop there. I guessed that the gems were family
property, the last treasure