Everyone regarded the two women with amazement.

There was a dead silence, and in the midst of this astonishment, in the midst of this silence, the old woman shrieked with a voice full of horror that turned everybody's blood cold: "Madame!--those jewels--on your neck--that black butterfly--'tis the very same--which on that fearful night--that accursed Fatia Negra--tore from my neck--those black earrings which he tore from my ears--one eye of the butterfly is a blue diamond!" Henrietta felt as if the floor were slipping away from beneath her feet.
She was wearing stolen jewels on her neck, and their former owner had recognized them! She heard a hissing and a murmuring all around her.

She gazed about her, possibly for a protector, and she perceived that she was standing alone in the midst of the room and that everyone recoiled from her, even her companion, and all eyes were fixed upon her.

She had a feeling of being branded with red-hot irons as she stood there, dishonoured and unprotected in the midst of so many strangers, and over against her a terrible accuser who had the horrible right to ask her: "Madame, where did you get those stolen jewels ?"--and she had nought to say to such a question.
At that moment a manly voice, which she at once recognized, rang out close beside her.
"Madame, give me your arm!--I bought those jewels for you at Paris.

I will be responsible for them." It was her husband.