ame of hazard, and our throws
had hitherto been bad enough, yet we had made something of this last. But
all the while a strange change was coming over us both, and our parts
seemed turned about. For whereas a few days before it was I who wished to
fling the diamond away, feeling overwrought and heavy-hearted in that
awful well-house, and Elzevir who held me from it; now it was he that
seemed to set little store by it, and I to whom it was all in all. He
seldom cared to look much at the jewel, and one night when I was praising
it to him, spoke out:

'Set not thy heart too much upon this stone. It is thine, and thine to
deal with. Never a penny will I touch that we may get for it. Yet,
were I thou, and reached great wealth with it, and so came back one
day to Moonfleet, I would not spend it all on my own ends, but put
aside a part to build the poor-houses again, as men say Blackbeard
meant to do with it'

I did not know what made him speak like this, and was not willing, even
in fancy, to agree to what he counselled; for with that gem before me,
lustrous, and all the brighter for lying on a rough deal table, I could
only think of the wealth it was to bring to us, and how I would most
certainly go back one day to Moonfleet and marry Grace. So I never
answered Elzevir, but took the diamond and slipped it back in the silver
locket, which still hung round my neck, for that was the safest place for
it that we could think of.

We spent some days in wandering round the town making inquiries, and
learnt that most of the diamond-buyers lived near one another in a
certain little street, whose name I have forgotten, but that the richest
and best known of them was one Krispijn Aldobrand. He was a Jew by birth,
but had lived all his life in the Hague, and besides having bought and
sold some of the finest stones, was said to ask few questions, and to
trouble little whence stones came, so they were but good. Thus, after
much thought and many changes of purpose, we chose this Aldobrand, and
settled we would put the matter to the touch with him.

We took an evening in late summer for our venture, and came to
Aldobrand's house about an hour before sundown. I remember the place
well, though I have not seen it for so long, and am certainly never like
to see it again. It was a low house of two stories standing back a little
from the street, with some wooden palings and a grass plot before it, and
a stone-flagged path leading up to the doo