Page:The orange-yellow diamond by Fletcher, J. S. (Joseph Smith).djvu/137

136 His look betokened news, and Zillah led him into the parlour.

"Alone?" asked Ayscough. "Aye, well, I've something to tell you that I want you to keep to yourself—for a bit, anyway. Those rings, you know, that the young fellow, Lauriston, says are his, and had been his mother's?"

"Well?" said Zillah, faintly, and half-conscious of some coming bad news. "What of them?"

"Our people," continued the detective, "have had some expert chap—jeweller, or something of that sort, examining those rings, and comparing them with the rings that are in your tray. And in that tray there are several rings which have a private mark inside them. Now, then!—those two rings which Lauriston claims are marked in exactly the same fashion!"