locked against the outgoing of those diamond studs whirls meant
the honour of the Queen of France.

And meanwhile a diamond-cutter was replacing the purloined stones
by others, matching them so closely that no man should be able to
say which were the originals and which the copies. Buckingham and
Gerbier between them guided the work. Soon it was accomplished,
and a vessel slipped down the Thames, allowed to pass by those
who kept close watch to enforce the royal decree, and made sail
for Calais, which was beginning to manifest surprise at this
entire cessation of traffic from England. From that vessel landed
Gerbier, and rode straight to Paris, carrying the Queen of France
the duplicate studs, which were to replace those which she had
sent to Buckingham.

Twenty-four hours later the ports of England were unsealed, and
commerce was free and unhampered once more. But it was twenty-
four hours too late for Richelieu and his agent, the Countess of
Carlisle. His Eminence deplored a fine chance lost through the
excessive power that was wielded in England by the parvenu.

Yet that is not quite the end of the story. Buckingham's inflamed
and reckless mind would stop at nothing now to achieve the object
of his desires--go to France and see the Queen. Since the country
was closed to him, he would force a way into it, the red way of
war. Blood should flow, ruin and misery desolate the land, but in
the end he would go to Paris to negotiate a peace, and that
should be his opportunity. Other reasons there may have been, but
none so dominant, none that could not have been remved by
negotiation. The pretexted casus belli was the matter of the