Darpent was to all he had ever thought or believed of
Frenchmen, and heard how well he spoke English, and how he had borne
himself at Paris, he quite forgave me, and only thought how he could
serve Eustace, the man whom he had always loved beyond all others.
He was practicing law in London still, but he had had time to repent
of having been on the wrong side when he saw what it had come to, and
had the Protector at the head of affairs. He said, however, that
negotiations for peace with France were like to begin, and that Mr.
Secretary Milton was casting about for one learned in French law to
assist in drawing the papers, so that he had little doubt that Mr.
Darpent would be readily taken into one of the public officers in
London.
Moreover, he said that the Walwyn property had been sequestered, but
no one had yet purchased it, and he thought that for a fair sum, it
might be redeemed for the family.
When Eustace and Millicent found that I would not hear of keeping the
pearls, declaring that such things were not fit for a poor exiled
lawyer's wife, Millicent said they had always felt like hot lead on
her neck. To compound the matter, Eustace persuaded her to have the
chaplet valued by a Dutch jeweller, and to ask Margaret and Solivet,
the guardians of the young Marquis de Nidemerle, to purchase them for
him.
To Margaret was left whatever of the property M. Poligny would spare,
and if Gaspard should have sons, one would bear the title of
Ribaumont, though the name would be extinct.
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