Lizzie, who always dressed well, was now attired as became a lady of rank, who had four thousand a year, and was the intimate friend of Lady Glencora Palliser. When last she saw Mr. Camperdown she had been arrayed for a long, dusty summer journey down to Scotland, and neither by her outside garniture nor by her manner had she then been able to exact much admiration. She had been taken by surprise in the street, and was frightened. Now, in difficulty though she was, she resolved that she would hold up her head and be very brave. She was a little taken aback when she saw her brother-in-law, but she strove hard to carry herself with confidence. “Ah, John,” she said, “I did not expect to find you with Mr. Camperdown.”
“I thought it best that I should be here—as a friend,” he said.
“It makes it much pleasanter for me, of course,” said Lizzie. “I am not quite sure that Mr. Camperdown will allow me to regard him as a friend.”
“You have never had any reason to regard me as your enemy, Lady Eustace,” said Mr. Camperdown. “Will you take a seat? I understand that you wish to state the circumstances under which the Eustace family diamonds were stolen while they were in your hands.”
“My own diamonds, Mr. Camperdown.”
“I cannot admit that for a moment, my lady.”
“What does it signify?” said Eustace. “The wretched stones are gone forever; and whether they were of right the property of my sister-in-law, or of her son, cannot matter now.”
Mr. Camperdown was irritated, and shook his head. It cut him to the heart that everybody should take the part of the wicked, fraudulent woman who had caused him such infinite trouble. Lizzie saw her opportunity and was bolder than ever. “You will never get me to acknowledge that they were not my own,” she said. “My husband gave them to me, and I know that they were my own.”
“They have been stolen, at any rate,” said the lawyer.
“Yes;—they have been stolen.”
“And now will you tell us how?”
Lizzie looked round upon her brother-in-law and sighed. She had never yet told the story in all its nakedness, although it had been three or four times extracted from her by admission. She paused, hoping that questions might be asked her which she could answer by easy monosyllables, but not a word was uttered to help her. “I suppose you know all about it,” she said at last.
“I know nothing about it,” said Mr. Camperdown.
“We heard that your jewel-case was taken out of your room at Carlisle and broken open,” said Eustace.
“So it was. They broke into my room in the dead of night, when I was in bed, fast asleep, and took the case away. When the morning came, everybody rushed into my room, and I was so frightened that I did not know what I was doing. How would your daughter bear it, if two men cut away the locks and got into her bedroom when she was asleep? You don’t think about that at all.”
“And where was the necklace?” asked Eustace.
Lizzie remembered that her friend the major had specially advised her to tell the whole truth to Mr. Camperdown—suggesting that by doing so she would go far towards saving herself from any prosecution. “It was under my pillow,” she whispered.
“And why did you not tell the magistrate that it had been under your pillow?”
Mr. Camperdown’s voice, as he put to her this vital question, was severe, and almost justified the little burst of sobs which came forth as a prelude to Lizzie’s answer. “I did not know what I was doing. I don’t know what you expect from me. You had been persecuting me ever since Sir Florian’s death about the diamonds, and I didn’t know what I was to do. They were my own, and I thought I was not obliged to tell everybody where I kept them. There are things which nobody tells. If I were to ask you all your secrets, would you tell them? When Sir Walter Scott was asked whether he wrote the novels, he didn’t tell.”
“He was not upon his oath, Lady Eustace.”
“He did take his oath—ever so many times. I don’t know what difference an oath makes. People ain’t obliged to tell their secrets, and I wouldn’t tell mine.”
“The difference is this, Lady Eustace;—that if you give false evidence upon oath, you commit perjury.”
“How was I to think of that, when I was so frightened and confused that I didn’t know where I was or what I was doing? There;—now I have told you everything.”
“Not quite everything. The diamonds were not stolen at Carlisle, but they were stolen afterwards. Did you tell the police what you had lost—or the magistrate—after the robbery in Hertford Street?”
“Yes; I did. There was some money taken, and rings, and other jewellery.”
“Did you tell them that the diamonds had been really stolen on that occasion?”
“They never asked me, Mr. Camperdown.”
“It is all as clear as a pikestaff, John,” said the lawyer.
“Quite clear, I should say,” replied Mr. Eustace.
“And I suppose I may go,” said Lizzie, rising from her chair.
There was no reason why she should not go; and, indeed, now that the interview was over, there did not seem to be any reason why she should have come. Though they had heard so much from her own mouth, they knew no more than they had known before. The great mystery had been elucidated, and Lizzie Eustace had been found to be the intriguing villain; but it was quite clear, even to Mr. Camperdown, that nothing could be done to her. He had never really thought that it would be expedient that she should be prosecuted for perjury, and he now found that she must
