So the quiet hours went by, overshadowed by the gloom of that approaching separation.  After dinner, when they had returned to the drawing-room, and Captain Sedgewick had refreshed his intellectual powers with copious draughts of strong tea, he began to talk of Marian’s childhood, and the circumstances which had thrown her into his hand.

“I don’t suppose my little girl ever showed you her mother’s jewel-case, did she, Gilbert?” he asked.

“Never.”

“I thought as much.  It contains that old-fashioned jewelry I spoke of—­family relics, which I have sometimes fancied might be of use to her, if ever her birthright were worth claiming.  But I doubt if that will ever happen now that so many years have gone by, and there has been no endeavour to trace her.  Run and fetch the case, Marian.  There are some of its contents which Gilbert ought to see before he leaves England—­papers which I intended to show him when I first told him your mother’s story.”

Marian left them, and came back in a few minutes carrying an old-fashioned ebony jewel-case, inlaid with brass.  She unlocked it with a little key hanging to her watch-chain, and exhibited its contents to Gilbert Fenton.  There were some curious old rings, of no great value; a seal-ring with a crest cut on a bloodstone—­a crest of that common kind of device which does not imply noble or ancient lineage on the part of the bearer thereof; a necklace and earrings of amethyst; a gold bracelet with a miniature of a young man, whose handsome face had a hard disagreeable expression; a locket containing grey hair, and having a date and the initials “M.G.” engraved on the massive plain gold case.

These were all the trinkets.  In a secret drawer there was a certificate of marriage between Percival Nowell, bachelor, gentleman, and Lucy Geoffry, spinster, at St. Pancras Church, London.  The most interesting contents of the jewel-case consisted of a small packet of letters written by Percival Nowell to Lucy Geoffry before their marriage.

“I have read them carefully ever so many times, with the notion that they might throw some light upon Mr. and Mrs. Nowell’s antecedents,” said the Captain, as Gilbert held these in his hands, disinclined to look at documents of so private and sacred a character; “but they tell very little.  I fancy that Miss Geoffry was a governess in some family in London—­the envelopes are missing, you see, so there is no evidence as to where she was living, except that it was in London—­and that she left her employment to marry this Percival Nowell.  You’d like to read the letters yourself, I daresay, Gilbert.  Put them in your pocket, and look them over at your leisure when you get home.  You can bring them back before you leave Lidford.”

Mr. Fenton glanced at Marian to see if she had any objection to his reading the letters.  She was quite silent, looking absently at the trinkets lying in the tray before her.