Early on the Wednesday morning, two or three hours before the time fixed for Lizzie’s visit to Mr. Camperdown, her cousin Frank came to call upon her. She presumed him to be altogether ignorant of all that Major Mackintosh had known, and therefore endeavoured to receive him as though her heart were light.

“Oh, Frank,” said she, “you have heard of our terrible misfortune here?”

“I have heard so much,” said he gravely, “that I hardly know what to believe, and what not to believe.”

“I mean about Miss Roanoke’s marriage?”

“Oh, yes; I have been told that it is broken off.”

Then Lizzie, with affected eagerness, gave him a description of the whole affair, declaring how horrible, how tragic, the thing had been from its very commencement. “Don’t you remember, Frank, down at Portray, they never really cared for each other? They became engaged the very time you were there.”

“I have not forgotten it.”

“The truth is, Lucinda Roanoke did not understand what real love meant. She had never taught herself to comprehend what is the very essence of love, and as for Sir Griffin Tewett, though he was anxious to marry her, he never had any idea of love at all. Did not you always feel that, Frank?”

“I’m sorry you have had so much to do with them, Lizzie.”

“There’s no help for spilt milk, Frank; and, as for that, I don’t suppose that Mrs. Carbuncle can do me any harm. The man is a baronet, and the marriage would have been respectable. Miss Roanoke has been eccentric, and that has been the long and the short of it. What will be done, Frank, with all the presents that were bought?”

“I haven’t an idea. They’d better be sold to pay the bills. But I came to you, Lizzie, about another piece of business.”

“What piece of business?” she asked, looking him in the face for a moment, trying to be bold, but trembling as she did 50. She had believed him to be ignorant of her story, but she had soon perceived, from his manner to her, that he knew it all, or at least that he knew so much that she would have to tell him all the rest. There could be no longer any secret with him. Indeed there could be no longer any secret with anybody. She must be prepared to encounter a world accurately informed as to every detail of the business which, for the last three months, had been to her a burden so oppressive that, at some periods, she had sunk altogether under the weight. She had already endeavoured to realise her position, and to make clear to herself the condition of her future life. Lord George had talked to her of perjury and prison, and had tried to frighten her by making the very worst her faults. According to him, she would certainly be made to pay for the diamonds, and would be enabled to do so by saving her income during a long term of incarceration. This was a terrible prospect of things; and she had almost believed in it. Then the major had come to her. The major, she thought, was the truest gentleman she had ever seen, and her best friend. Ah — if it had not been for the wife and seven children, there might still have been comfort! That which had been perjury with Lord George, had by the major been so simply, and yet so correctly, called an incorrect version of facts! And so it was — and no more than that. Lizzie, in defending herself to herself, felt that, though cruel magistrates and hard-hearted lawyers and pig-headed jurymen might call her little fault by the name of perjury, it could not be real, wicked perjury, because the diamonds had been her own. She had defrauded nobody — had wished to defraud nobody — if the people had only left her alone. It had suited her to give — an incorrect version of facts, because people had troubled themselves about her affairs; and now all this had come upon her! The major had comforted her very greatly; but still — what would the world say? Even he, kind and comfortable as he had been, had made her understand that she must go into court and confess the incorrectness of her own version. She believed every word the major said. Ah, there was a man worthy to be believed — a man of men! They could not take away her income or her castle. They could not make her pay for the diamonds. But still — what would the world say? And what would her lovers say? What one of her lovers thought proper to say, she had already heard. Lord George had spoken out, and had made himself very disagreeable. Lord Fawn, she knew, would withdraw the renewal of his offer, let her answer to him be what it might. But what would Frank say? And now Frank was with her, looking into her face with severe eyes.

She was more than ever convinced that the life of a widow was not suited for her and that, among her several lovers, she must settle her wealth and her heart upon some special lover. Neither her wealth nor her heart would be in any way injured by the confession which she was prepared to make. But then men are so timid, so false, and so blind! In regard to Frank, whom she now believed that she had loved with all the warmth of her young affections from the first moment in which she had seen him after Sir Florian’s death — she had been at great trouble to clear the way for him. She knew of his silly engagement to Lucy Morris, and was willing to forgive him that offence. She knew that he could not marry Lucy, because of his pennilessness and his indebtedness; and therefore she had taken the trouble to see Lucy, with the view of making things straight on that side. Lucy had, of course, been rough with her, and ill-mannered, but Lizzie thought that, upon the whole, she had succeeded. Lucy was rough and ill-mannered, but was, at the same time, what the world calls good, and would hardly persevere after what had been said to her. Lizzie was sure that, a month since, her cousin would have yielded himself to her willingly, if he could only have freed himself from Lucy Morris. But now, just in this very nick of time, which was so momentous to her, the police had succeeded in unravelling her secret, and there sat Frank, looking at her with stern, ill-natured eyes, like an enemy rather than a lover.

“What piece of business?” she asked, in answer to his question. She must be bold — if she could. She must brazen it out with him, if only she could be strong enough to put on her brass in his presence. He had been so stupidly chivalrous in believing all her stories about the robbery when nobody else had quite believed them, that she felt that she had before her a task that was very disagreeable and very difficult. She looked up at him, struggling to be bold, and then her glance sank before his gaze and fell upon the floor.

“I do not at all wish to pry into your secrets,” he said.

Secrets from him! Some such exclamation was on her lips, when she remembered that her special business, at the present moment, was to acknowledge a secret which had been kept from him.

“It is unkind of you to speak to me in that way,” said she.

“I am quite in earnest. I do not wish to pry into your secrets. But I hear rumours which seem to be substantiated; and though, of course, I could stay away from you ——”

“Oh — whatever happens, pray, pray do not stay away from me. Where am I to look for advice if you stay away from me?”

“That is all very well, Lizzie.”

“Ah, Frank, if you desert me, I am undone.”

“It is of course true that some of the police have been with you lately?”

“Major Mackintosh was here, about the end of last week — a most kind man, altogether a gentleman, and I was so glad to see him.”

“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, then 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 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 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 sha’n’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 rui............