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The next day the two customers called again. They were received by Mrs.
Cave almost in tears. It transpired that no one could imagine all
that she had stood from Cave at various times in her married
pilgrimage.... She also gave a garbled account of the disappearance. The
clergyman and the Oriental laughed silently at one another, and said it
was very extraordinary. As Mrs. Cave seemed disposed to give them the
complete history of her life they made to leave the shop. Thereupon Mrs.
Cave, still clinging to hope, asked for the clergyman's address, so
that, if she could get anything out of Cave, she might communicate it.
The address was duly given, but apparently was afterwards mislaid. Mrs.
Cave can remember nothing about it.
In the evening of that day, the Caves seem to have exhausted their
emotions, and Mr. Cave, who had been out in the afternoon, supped in a
gloomy isolation that contrasted pleasantly with the impassioned
controversy of the previous days. For some time matters were very badly
strained in the Cave household, but neither crystal nor customer
reappeared.
Now, without mincing the matter, we must admit that Mr. Cave was a liar.
He knew perfectly well where the crystal was. It was in the rooms of Mr.
Jacoby Wace, Assistant Demonstrator at St. Catherine's Hospital,
Westbourne Street. It stood on the sideboard partially covered by a
black velvet cloth, and beside a decanter of American whisky. It is from
Mr. Wace, indeed, that the particulars upon which this narrative is
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