"This is her private room, is it!" demanded Sir Norman.
"Yes."
"Just stand aside, then, and let me pass."
The room he entered was small, simply furnished, and seemed to
answer as bed-chamber and study, all in one. There was a
writing-table under a window, covered with books, and he glanced
at them with some curiosity. They were classics, Greek and
Latin, and other little known tongues - perhaps Sanscrit and
Chaldaic, French belles lettres, novels, and poetry, and a few
rare old English books. There were no papers, however, and those
were what he was in search of; so spying a drawer in the table,
he pulled it hastily open. The eight that met his eyes fairly
dazzled him. It was full of jewels of incomparable beauty and
value, strewn as carelessly about as if they were valueless. The
blaze of gems at the midnight court seemed to him as nothing
compared with the Golconda, the Valley of Diamonds shooting forth
sparks of rainbow-fire before him now. Around one magnificent
diamond necklace was entwined a scrap of paper, on which was
written:
"The family jewels of the Montmorencis. To be given to my
sisters when I am dead.
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