Lizzie Eustace was speechless as she continued to look up into the Corsair’s face. She ought to have answered him briskly, either with indignation or with a touch of humour. But she could not answer him at all. She was desired to tell him all that she knew about the robbery, and she was unable to declare that she knew nothing. How much did he suspect? What did he believe? Had she been watched by Mrs. Carbuncle, and had something of the truth been told to him? And then would it not be better for her that he should know it all? Unsupported and alone she could not bear the trouble which was on her. If she were driven to tell her secret to any one, had she not better tell it to him? She knew that if she did so, she would be a creature in his hands to be dealt with as he pleased; but would there not be a certain charm in being so mastered? He was but a pinchbeck lord. She had wit enough to know that; but then she had wit enough also to feel that she herself was but a pinchbeck lady. He would be fit for her, and she for him, if only he would take her. Since her daydreams first began, she had been longing for a Corsair; and here he was, not kneeling at her feet, but standing over her, as became a Corsair. At any rate he had mastered her now, and she could not speak to him.

He waited perhaps a minute, looking at her, before he renewed his question; and the minute seemed to her to be an age. During every second her power beneath his gaze sank lower and lower. There gradually came a grim smile over his face, and she was sure that he could read her very heart. Then he called her by her Christian name, as he had never called her before. “Come, Lizzie,” he said, “you might as well tell me all about it. You know.”

“Know what?” The words were audible to him, though they were uttered in the lowest whisper.

“About this d —— necklace. What is it all? Where are they? And how did you manage it?”

“I didn’t manage anything!”

“But you know where they are?” He paused again, still gazing at her. Gradually there came across his face, or she fancied that it was so, a look of ferocity which thoroughly frightened her. If he should turn against her, and be leagued with the police against her, what chance would she have? “You know where they are,” he said, repeating his words. Then at last she nodded her head, assenting to his assertion. “And where are they? Come, out with it! If you won’t tell me, you must tell some one else. There has been a deal too much of this already.”

“You won’t betray me?”

“Not if you deal openly with me.”

“I will; indeed I will. And it was all an accident. When I took them out of the box, I only did it for safety.”

“You did take them out of the box then?” Again she nodded her head. “And have got them now?” There was another nod. “And where are they? Come; with such an enterprising spirit as yours, you ought to be able to speak. Has Benjamin got them?”

“Oh, no.”

“And he knows nothing about them?”

“Nothing.”

“Then I have wronged in my thoughts that son of Abraham.”

“Nobody knows anything,” said Lizzie.

“Not even Jane or Lucinda?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Then you have kept your secret marvellously. And where are they?”

“Up-stairs.”

“In your bedroom?”

“In my desk in the little sitting-room.”

“The Lord be good to us!” ejaculated Lord George. “All the police in London, from the chief downwards, are agog about this necklace. Every well-known thief in the town is envied by every other thief because he is thought to have had a finger in the pie. I am suspected, and Mr. Benjamin is suspected; Sir Griffin is suspected, and half the jewellers in London and Paris are supposed to have the stones in their keeping. Every man and woman is talking about it, and people are quarrelling about it till they almost cut each other’s throats; and all the while you have got them locked up in your desk! How on earth did you get the box broken open and then conveyed out of your room at Carlisle?”

Then Lizzie, in a frightened whisper, with her eyes often turned on the floor, told the whole story. “If I’d had a minute to think of it,” she said, “I would have confessed the truth at Carlisle. Why should I want to steal what was my own? But they came to me all so quickly, and I didn’t like to say that I had them under my pillow.”

“I dare say not.”

“And then I couldn’t tell anybody afterwards. I always meant to tell you, from the very first, because I knew you would be good to me. They are my own. Surely I might do what I liked with my own?”

“Well, yes; in one way. But you see there was a lawsuit in Chancery going on about them; and then you committed perjury at Carlisle. And altogether, it’s not quite straight sailing, you know.”

“I suppose not.”

“Hardly. Major Mackintosh, and the magistrates, and Messrs. Bunfit and Gager won’t settle down, peaceable and satisfied, when they hear the end of the story. And I think Messrs. Camperdown will have a bill against you. It’s been uncommonly clever, but I don’t see the use of it.”

“I’ve been very foolish,” said Lizzie; “but you won’t desert me?”

“Upon my word I don’t know what I’m to do.”

“Will you have them as a present?”

“Certainly not.”

“They’re worth ever so much; ten thousand pounds! And they are my own, to do just what I please with them.”

“You are very good; but what should I do with them?”

“Sell them.”

“Who’d buy them? And before a week was over I should be in prison, and in a couple of months should be standing at............