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