others, and made
up his mind to part with her rather than let his heart be eaten out by
unappeasable longing for what his own good sense told him would never be
his.

Yet, being naturally generous, he was satisfied with a separation, and,
finding it impossible to think of her as other than extravagantly fed,
waited on and clothed, he allowed her a good share of his fortune with
the one proviso, that she should not disgrace him. But the diamond she
stole, or rather carried off in her naturally high-handed manner with
the rest of her jewels. He had never given it to hen She knew the value
he set on it, but not how he came by it, and would have worn it quite
freely if he had not very soon given her to understand that the pleasure
of doing so ceased when she left his house. As she could not be seen
with it without occasioning public remark, she was forced, though
much against her will, to heed his wishes, and enjoy its brilliancy in
private. But once, when he was out of town, she dared to appear with
this fortune on her breast, and again while on a visit West,--and her
husband heard of it.

Mr. Fairbrother had had the jewel set to suit him, not in Florence,
as Sears had said, but by a skilful workman he had picked up in great
poverty in a remote corner of Williamsburg. Always in dread of some
complication, he had provided himself with a second facsimile in paste,
this time of an astonishing brightness, and this facsimile he had had
set precisely like the true stone. Then he gave the workman a thousand
dollars and sent him back to Switzerland. This imitation in paste he
showed nobody, but he kept it always in his pocket; why, he hardly knew.
Meantime, he had one confidant, not of his crime, but of his sentiments
toward his wife, and the determination he had secretly made to proceed
to extremities if she continued to disobey him.

This was a man of his own age or older, who had known him in his early
days, and had followed all his fortunes. He had been the master of
Fairbrother then, but he was his servant now, and as devoted to his
interests as if they were his own,--which, in a way, they were. For
eighteen years he had stood at the latter's right hand, satisfied to
look no further, but, for the last three, his glances had strayed a foot
or two beyond his master, and taken in his master's wife.

The feelings which this man had for Mrs. Fairbrother were peculiar. She
was a mere adjunct to her great lord, but she was a ve