started up like steel spikes to snatch the bolt.  For a moment I was stunned, but, never being very subject to despair, on my recovery, which was almost at once, took every measure that could be devised.  Who had touched me?  Whom had I met?  Through what streets had I come?  In ten minutes the Prefect had the matter in hand.  My injunctions were strict privacy.  I sincerely hoped the mishap would not reach England; and if the diamond were not recovered before the Marquis of G. arrived,—­why, there was the Seine.  It is all very well to talk,—­yet suicide is so French an affair, that an Englishman does not take to it naturally, and, except in November, the Seine is too cold and damp for comfort, but during that month I suppose it does not greatly differ in these respects from our own atmosphere.

A preternatural activity now possessed me.  I slept none, ate little, worked immoderately.  I spared no efforts, for everything was at stake.  In the midst of all G. arrived.  Hay also exerted himself to the utmost; I promised him a hundred pounds, if I found it.  He never told me that he said how it would be, never intruded the state of the market, never resented my irritating conduct, but watched me with narrow yet kind solicitude, and frequently offered valuable suggestions, which, however, as everything else did, led to nothing.  I did not call on G., but in a week or so his card was brought up one morning to me.  “Deny me,” I groaned.  It yet wanted a week of the day on which I had promised to deliver him the diamond.  Meanwhile the Baron Stahl had reached Paris, but he still remained in private,—­few had seen him.

The police were forever on the wrong track.  To-day they stopped the old Comptesse du Quesne and her jewels, at the Barriere; to-morrow, with their long needles, they riddled a package of lace destined for the Duchess of X. herself; the Secret Service was doubled; and to crown all, a splendid new star of the testy Prince de Ligne was examined and proclaimed to be paste,—­the Prince swearing vengeance, if he could discover the cause,—­while half Paris must have been under arrest.  My own hotel was ransacked thoroughly,—­Hay begging that his traps might be included,—­but nothing resulted, and I expected nothing, for, of course, I could swear that the stone was in my pocket when I stepped into the street.  I confess I never was nearer madness,—­every word and gesture stung me like asps,—­I walked on burning coals.  Enduring all this torment, I must yet meet my daily comrades, eat ices at Tortoni’s, stroll on the Boulevards, call on my acquaintance, with the same equanimity as before.  I believe I was equal to it.  Only by contrast with that blessed time when Ulster and diamonds were unknown, could I imagine my past happiness, my present wretchedness.  Rather than suffer it again, I would be stretched on the rack till every bone in my skin was broken.  I cursed Mr. Arthur Ulster every hour in the day; myself, as well; and even now the word diamond sends a cold blast to my heart.  I often met my friend the marchand des armures.  It was his turn to triumph; I fancied there must be a hang-dog kind of air about me, as about every sharp man who has been outwitted.  It wanted finally but two days of that on which I was to deliver the diamond.