He found that it was made in two divisions, the upper being a shelf in which all kinds of small things and a few rings were lying; the lower part was full of cases, some wooden and some made of faded leather. He opened the largest and discovered a necklace, each link of which was a pink topaz set in diamonds. The stones were clear set, for the artificer had not foiled them at the back, as so many of his trade were apt to do, and the light flowed through them like sunlight through roses. Gilbert was pleased, and laid it again in its leather case feeling that this, his first discovery, was fit even for Cecilia. The next thing that he opened was a polished oval wooden box, tied round and round with a piece of embroidery silk, and having a painted wreath of laurel-leaves encircling the ‘C. L.’ on the top of the lid. It was a pretty, dainty little object, pre-eminently a woman’s intimate property; a little thing which might lie on a dressing-table among laces and fans, or be found tossed into the recesses of some frivolous, scented cushion close to its owner. It did not look as though made to hold jewels. Inside lay the finest and thinnest of gold chains, long enough to go round a slender throat, and made with no clasp nor fastening. It was evidently intended to be crossed over and knotted in front, with the ends left hanging down, for each terminated in a pear-shaped stone--one an emerald set in diamonds, and one a diamond set in emeralds. The exquisite thing charmed him, and he sat looking at it, and turning it this way and that to catch the light. He loved emeralds, because they reminded him of the little brooch he had often seen on Cecilia’s bosom. It should be his first gift to her. He next came upon the shagreen case containing the pearl necklace which Mr. Speid had carried with him when he went to fetch his bride, and which had adorned his mother’s neck as she drove up in the family chariot to Whanland. He did not know its history, but he admired the pearls and their perfect uniformity and shape, and he pictured Cecilia wearing them. He would have her painted in them. Instinctively he glanced up to the wall where Clementina Speid’s portrait hung. By his orders it had been taken from the garret, cleaned, and brought down to the room in which he generally sat. She had always fascinated him, and the discovery of her brilliant, wayward face hidden in the dust, put away like a forgotten thing in gloom and oblivion, had produced an unfading impression on his mind. What a contrast between her smiling lips, her dancing eyes, her mass of curling chestnut hair, and the forlorn isolation of her grave on the shore with the remorseless inscription chosen for it by the man he remembered! Those words were not meant to apply to her, but to him who had laid her there. Gilbert had no right to think of her as aught but an evil thing, but, for all that, he could not judge her. Surely, surely, she had been judged.