“What made him come?”
“What made him come?” How should she tell her story? “Oh, he came, of course, about the robbery. They have found out everything. It was the jeweller, Benjamin, who concocted it all. That horrid sly girl I had, Patience Crabstick, put him up to it. And there were two regular housebreakers. They have found it all out at last.”
“So I hear.”
“And Major Mackintosh came to tell me about it.”
“But the diamonds are gone?”
“Oh yes;—those weary, weary diamonds. Do you know, Frank, that, though they were my own, as much as the coat you wear is your own, I am glad they are gone. I am glad that the police have not found them. They tormented me so that I hated them. Don’t you remember that I told you how I longed to throw them into the sea, and to be rid of them forever?”
“That, of course, was a joke.”
“It was no joke, Frank. It was solemn, serious truth.”
“What I want to know is—where were they stolen?”
That, of course, was the question which hitherto Lizzie Eustace had answered by an incorrect version of facts, and now she must give the true version. She tried to put a bold face upon it, but it was very difficult. A face bold with brass she could not assume. Perhaps a little bit of acting might serve her turn, and a face that should be tender rather than bold. “Oh, Frank!” she exclaimed, bursting out into tears.
“I always supposed that they were taken at Carlisle,” said Frank. Lizzie fell on her knees, at his feet, with her hands clasped together, and her one long lock of hair hanging down so as to touch his arm. Her eyes were bright with tears, but were not, as yet, wet and red with weeping. Was not this confession enough? Was he so hard-hearted as to make her tell her own disgrace in spoken words? Of course he knew, well enough, now, when the diamonds had been stolen. If he were possessed of any tenderness, any tact, any manliness, he would go on, presuming that question to have been answered.
“I don’t quite understand it all,” he said, laying his hand softly upon her shoulder. “I have been led to make so many statements to other people, which now seem to have been—incorrect! It was only the box that was taken at Carlisle?”
“Only the box.” She could answer that question.
“But the thieves thought that the diamonds were in the box?”
“I suppose so. But, oh, Frank! don’t cross-question me about it. If you could know what I have suffered, you would not punish me any more. I have got to go to Mr. Camperdown’s this very day. I offered to do that at once, and I shan’t have strength to go through it if you are not kind to me now. Dear, dear Frank—do be kind to me.”
And he was kind to her. He lifted her up to the sofa and did not ask her another question about the necklace. Of course she had lied to him and to all the world. From the very commencement of his intimacy with her, he had known that she was a liar, and what else could he have expected but lies? As it happened, this particular lie had been very big, very efficacious, and the cause of boundless troubles. It had been wholly unnecessary, and, from the first, though injurious to many, more injurious to her than to any other. He himself had been injured, but it seemed to him now that she had absolutely ruined herself. And all this had been done for nothing—had been done, as he thought, that Mr. Camperdown might be kept in the dark, whereas all the light in the world would have assisted Mr. Camperdown nothing. He brought to mind, as he stood over her, all those scenes which she had so successfully performed in his presence since she had come to London—scenes in which the robbery in Carlisle had been discussed between them. She had on these occasions freely expressed her opinion about the necklace, saying, in a low whisper, with a pretty little shrug of her shoulders, that she presumed it to be impossible that Lord George should have been concerned in the robbery. Frank had felt, as she said so, that some suspicion was intended by her to be attached to Lord George. She had wondered whether Mr. Camperdown had known anything about it. She had hoped that Lord Fawn would now be satisfied. She had been quite convinced that Mr. Benjamin had the diamonds. She had been indignant that the police had not traced the property. She had asked in another whisper—a very low whisper indeed—whether it was possible that Mrs. Carbuncle should know more about it than she was pleased to tell? And all the while the necklace had been lying in her own desk, and she had put it there with her own hands!
It was marvellous to him that the woman could have been so false and have sustained her falsehood so well. And this was his cousin, his well-beloved—as a cousin, certainly well-beloved; and there had, doubtless, been times in which he had thought that he would make her his wife! He could not but smile as he stood looking at her, contemplating all the confusion which she had caused, and thinking how very little the disclosure of her iniquity seemed to confound herself. “Oh, Frank, do not laugh at me,” she said.
“I am not laughing, Lizzie; I am only wondering.”
“And now, Frank, what had I better do?”
“Ah;—that is difficult; is it not? You see I hardly know all the truth yet. I do not want to know more—but how can I advise you?”
“I thought you knew everything.”
“I don’t suppose anybody can do anything to you.”
“Major Mackintosh says that nobody can. He quite understands that they were my own property, and that I had a right
