Quickly, as if impelled by a sudden fear, she went to Stella’s room. All her things had gone, the dressing table was bare, cupboard doors stood open to reveal their emptiness. It was a room impersonal and without individuality, as it had been on the day of their arrival, a vacant room, Chrissie thought suddenly, waiting for the next occupant.
She wrenched open the drawer of the dressing table. The jewellery was there as Stella had said it would be. There was the diamond necklace in its velvet lined case and the other articles of jewellery, each shining and glittering as Chrissie opened their boxes to look at them. For a moment she only stared at the gems, then suddenly she hugged them against her narrow breast. They were hers – hers to convert into money, to hoard or to spend as she wishe
