chance, I picked them up close by the sea. The poor lady to whom they once belonged you never knew—it is quite possible that she never was upon your savage coast—and how her jewels came there must always remain a mystery. But two things you hold in common with her, for she was a lady and she was very beautiful.”
He held toward Nadara in his open palm a little worn bag of the skins of small rodents, sewn together with bits of gut. At sight of it both the girl and Waldo Emerson exclaimed in astonishment.
Nadara took the bag wonderingly in her hands and dumped the contents into her palm. Waldo pressed forward.
“Did you know to whom those belonged?” he asked Burlinghame.
“To Eugenie Marie Celeste de la Valois, Countess of Crecy,” replied the captain.
“They belonged to Nadara’s mother,” returned Waldo. “Her foster parents were present at her birth and took these jewels from the poor woman’s body after she had passed away. She was washed ashore in a boat in which there was only a dead man beside herself—Nadara was born that night.”
And so, when the clergyman had performed the marriage ceremony he entered upon the certificate in the space provided there for the name of the woman: Nadara de la Valois.
