no;--not at all. It is this. You must let me lend you that five
hundred pounds you want."

"Indeed you shall do no such thing. I should not have mentioned it to
you if I had not thought that you were one of the insolvent yourself.
You were in debt yourself when we last talked about money."

"So I am;--and that horrid woman, Mrs. Carbuncle, has made me lend
her one hundred and fifty pounds. But it is so different with you,
Frank."

"Yes;--my needs are greater than hers."

"What is she to me?--while you are everything! Things can't be so bad
with me but what I can raise five hundred pounds. After all, I am not
really in debt, for a person with my income; but if I were, still my
first duty would be to help you if you want help."

"Be generous first, and just afterwards. That's it;--isn't it,
Lizzie? But indeed, under no circumstances could I take a penny of
your money. There are some persons from whom a man can borrow, and
some from whom he cannot. You are clearly one of those from whom I
cannot borrow."

"Why not?"

"Ah,--one can't explain these things. It simply is so. Mrs. Carbuncle
was quite the natural person to borrow your money, and it seems that
she has complied with nature. Some Jew who wants thirty per cent. is
the natural person for me. All these things are arranged, and it is
of no use disturbing the arrangements and getting out of course. I
shall pull through. And now let me know your own news."

"The police have taken Patience."

"They have,--have they? Then at last we shall know all about the
diamonds." This was gall to poor Lizzie. "Where did they get her?"

"Ah!--I don't know that."

"And who told you?"

"A policeman came here last night and said so. She is going to
turn against the thieves, and tell all that she knows. Nasty, mean
creature."

"Thieves are nasty, mean creatures generally. We shall get it all
out now,--as to what happened at Carlisle and what happened here. Do
you know that everybody believes, up to this moment, that your dear
friend Lord George de Bruce sold the diamonds to Mr. Benjamin, the
jeweller?"

Lizzie could only shrug her shoulders. She herself, among many
doubts, was upon the whole disposed to think as everybody thought.
She did believe,--as far as she believed anything in the matter, that
the Corsair had determined to become possessed of the prize from the
moment that he saw it in Scotland, that the Corsair arranged the
robbery in Carlisle, and that again he