"And it was very terrible. And then, I had been threatened with a lawsuit. You have heard that, too?"
"Yes,—I had heard it."
"I believe they have given that up now. I understand from my cousin, Mr. Greystock, who has been my truest friend in all my troubles, that the stupid people have found out at last that they had not a leg to stand on. I daresay you have heard that, Lord Fawn?"
Lord Fawn certainly had heard, in a doubtful way, the gist of Mr. Dove's opinion, namely, that the necklace could not be claimed from the holder of it as an heirloom attached to the Eustace family. But he had heard at the same time that Mr. Camperdown was as confident as ever that he could recover the property by claiming it after another fashion. Whether or no that claim had been altogether abandoned, or had been allowed to fall into abeyance because of the absence of the diamonds, he did not know, nor did any one know,—Mr. Camperdown himself having come to no decision on the subject. But Lord Fawn had been aware that his sister had of late shifted the ground of her inveterate enmity to Lizzie Eustace, making use of the scene which Mr. Gowran had witnessed, in lieu of the lady's rapacity in regard to the necklace. It might therefore be assumed, Lord Fawn thought and feared, that his strong ground in regard to the necklace had been cut from under his feet. But still, it did not behove him to confess that the cause which he had always alleged as the ground for his retreat from the engagement was no cause at all. It might go hard with him should an attempt be made to force him to name another cause. He knew that he would lack the courage to tell the lady that he had heard from his sister that one Andy Gowran had witnessed a terrible scene down among the rocks at Portray. So he sat silent, and made no answer to Lizzie's first assertion respecting the diamonds.
But the necklace was her strong point, and she did not intend that he should escape the subject. "If I remember right, Lord Fawn, you yourself saw that wretched old attorney once or twice on the subject?"
"I did see Mr. Camperdown, certainly. He is my own family lawyer."
"You were kind enough to interest yourself about the diamonds,—were you not?" She asked him this as a question, and then waited for a reply. "Was it not so?"
"Yes, Lady Eustace; it was so."
"They were of great value, and it was natural," continued Lizzie. "Of course you interested yourself. Mr. Camperdown was full of awful threats against me;—was he not? I don't know what he was not going to do. He stopped me in the street as I was driving to the station in my own carriage, when the diamonds were with me;—which was a very strong measure, I think. And he wrote me ever so many,—oh, such horrid letters. And he went about telling everybody that it was an heirloom;—didn't he? You know all that, Lord Fawn?"
"I know that he wanted to recover them."