"Go and abuse me to Stephen. I think little of him. He is neither handsome nor brave nor self-respecting, and he threatens me! What do you think of a lover who threatens his mistress? He is out of the Court of Love. He is an alien, an outlaw."
"How you rant!"
She did not wait to hear more. She was both angry and scornful; and she sought out her mother, and found her resting in her own room.
"I get tired soon in the day, Jane," she said; "I think it is the London air, and the strange life, and the constant fear of some change. No one seems to know what a day will bring forth. Did you see Stephen?"
"Yes."
"It can't be, I suppose?"
"You know it can't be, mother." She was hurt at the question. It was a wrong to Cluny; and she said with some temper, "It could not be under any circumstances. The man is mean; he has just threatened me. If I had not been a woman I would have given him his threat back in his teeth. I would rather be Cluny's wife, if Cluny had not a crown."
"Cluny is not troubled with crowns, or half-crowns. Stephen is an old neighbour,—but I am not one to complain. If you are pleased, father and I can make shift to look so. As for your brothers, I'm not so sure of them."
Then Jane felt a sudden anger at the de Wick family. All her life, in some way or other, it had been the de Wicks. Matilda's exactions and provoking words and ways came to her memory and brought with them a sense of too much endured. Stephen's love had ever been a selfishly disturbing element. Many an unpleasant day it had caused her, and at this moment she told herself that, say what they would, the Earldom had an unacknowledged power over the imagination of all the Swaffhams but herself. She was just going to voice this opinion, when her mother's weary face arrested her words; she went away without justifying herself or her lover, and when the act of self-denial had been accomplished, she was glad of it. In the stillness of her room she retired with Him who is a sure hiding-place, and there found that peace which "soft upon the spirit lies, as tired eyelids upon tired eyes." Her soul sat light and joyful on its temporal perch, for she had been with God, and all the shadows were gone. Men and women who have this supernatural element in them, will understand; to those who are without it, there are no words, there are no miracles which could authenticate this intimate, spiritual communion to them.
The next day Cymlin went to Jevery House and reported, on his return, its forlorn emptiness. There were only two or three servants there, and they had no idea when the family would return. To Jane he admitted that London seemed desolate, and Jane was herself conscious of a want or a loss. Much of her London life had been blended with Jevery House, and there was now a necessity for a fresh ordering of her time and duties.