His own contention that it was scarcely probable that he should
have gone to the pawnshop except to pledge something, and that that
something was the rings, would also be swept aside, easily enough: his
real object, the other side would say, had been robbery when the old man
was alone: what evidence had he that the two rings which he had in his
hand when Ayscough found him hurrying out of the shop were really his?
Here, Lauriston knew he was in a difficulty. He had kept these two rings
safely hidden in his old-fashioned trunk ever since coming to London, and
had never shown them to a single person--he had, indeed, never seen them
himself for a long time until he took them out that afternoon. But where
was his proof of that! He had no relations to whom he could appeal. His
mother had possessed an annuity; just sufficient to maintain her and her
son, and to give Lauriston a good education: it had died with her, and all
that she had left him, to start life on, was about two hundred pounds and
some small personal belongings, of which the rings and his father's watch
and chain were a part. And he remembered now that his mother had kept
those rings as securely put away as he had kept them since her death--
until they came into his hands at her death he had only once seen them;
she had shown them to him when he was a boy and had said they were very
valuable.
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