ing 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 only the people would have 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