"Menzies of Musselburg, an old friend of Neville’s mother. Ayrton went to Scotland to question him, but to no purpose." "Then I suppose we shall see no more of Lord Neville. I am very sorry. He was a good youth, and he loved Jane Swaffham very honestly. And my jewels, too, are gone, and if it were worth while, I could be sorry for them also; one set was of great value and singular workmanship. But they count for little in comparison with Neville’s life and little Jane’s sorrow." A week after this evening the Jeverys were in their own house, and Matilda had sent word to Jane Swaffham that she wanted to see her. Why she did this, she hardly knew. Her motives were much mixed, but the kindly ones predominated. At any rate, they did so when the grave little woman entered her presence. For she came to meet Matilda with outstretched hands and her old sweet smile, and she expressed all her usual interest in whatever concerned Matilda. Had she met her weeping and complaining, Matilda felt she would almost have hated her. But there was nothing about Jane suggestive of the great sorrow through which she was passing. Her eyes alone told of her soul’s travail; the lids drooped, and there was that dark shadow in them, which only comes through the incubation of some long, anxious grief in the heart. But her smile was as ready and sweet, her manner as sympathetic, her dress as carefully neat and appropriate as it had always been. Matilda fell readily under the charm of such a kind and self-effacing personality. She opened her heart on various subjects to Jane, more especially on Anthony Lynn’s dramatic life and death, and the money and land he had left her. "Of course," she said, "it is only temporary. When the King comes home, Stephen will be Earl de Wick, and I shall willingly resign all to him. In the meantime I intend to carry out Anthony’s plans for the improvement of the estate; and for this end, I shall have to live a great deal at de Wick. Lynn often said to me, ’Some one must own the land, and the person who owns it ought to live on it.’" When this subject had been talked well over, Jane named cautiously the lover in France. Much to her surprise, Matilda seemed pleased to enlarge on the topic. She spoke herself of Prince Rupert, and of the poverty and suffering Charles’ Court, were enduring, and she regretted with many strong expressions Rupert’s presence there. "All he makes is swallowed up in the bottomless Stuart pit," she said; "even my youth and beauty have gone the same hopeless road." "Not your beauty, Matilda. I never saw you look lovelier than you do to-day."