adjoining her château in the Gironde, which she had sold to a
wine-merchant of England. I found a zest in the affair, as I pursued it.

We were now fairly at sea, but before long I found we were likely to
remain there; in fact, nothing of consequence eventuated. I began to
regret having taken the affair from the hands in which I had found it,
and one day, it being a gala or some insatiable saint's day, I was
riding, perplexed with that and other matters, and paying small
attention to the passing crowd. I was vexed and mortified, and had fully
decided to throw up the whole,--on such hairs do things hang,--when,
suddenly turning a corner, my bridle-reins became entangled in the
snaffle of another rider. I loosened them abstractedly, and not till it
was necessary to bow to my strange antagonist, on parting, did I glance
up. The person before me was evidently not accustomed to play the dandy;
he wore his clothes ill, sat his horse worse, and was uneasy in the
saddle. The unmistakable air of the _gamin_ was apparent beneath the
superficies of the gentleman. Conspicuous on his costume, and wound like
an order of merit upon his breast, glittered a chain, _the_ chain,--each
tiny brick-like gem spiked with a hundred sparks, and building a fabric
of sturdy probabilities with the celerity of the genii in constructing
Aladdin's palace. There, a cable to haul up the treasure, was the
chain;--where was the diamond? I need not tell you how I followed this
young friend, with what assiduity I kept him in sight, up and down, all
day long, till, weary at last of his fine sport, as I certainly was of
mine, he left his steed in stall and fared on his way a-foot. Still
pursuing, now I threaded quay and square, street and alley, till he
disappeared in a small shop, in one of those dark crowded lanes leading
eastward from the Pont Neuf, in the city. It was the sign of a _marchand
des armures_, and, having provided myself with those persuasive
arguments, a _sergent-de-ville_ and a _gendarme_, I entered.