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 ruined
herself. And all this had been done for nothing,--had been done, as
he thought, that Mr. Camperdown might be kept in the dark, whereas
all the light in the world would have assisted Mr. Camperdown
nothing. He brought to mind, as he stood over her, all those scenes
which she had so successfully performed in his presence since she had
come to London,--scenes in which the robbery in Carlisle had been
discussed between them. She had on these occasions freely expressed
her opinion about the necklace, saying, in a low whisper, with
a pretty little shrug of her shoulders, that she presumed it to
be impossible that Lord George should have been concerned in the
robbery. Frank had felt, as she said so, that some suspicion was
intended by her to be attached to Lord George. She had wondered
whether Mr. Camperdown had known anything about it. She had hoped
that Lord Fawn would now be satisfied. She had been quite convinced
that Mr. Benjamin had the diamonds. She had been indignant that
the police had not traced the property. She had asked in another
whisper,--a very low whisper indeed,--whether it was possible that
Mrs. Carbuncle should know more about it than she was pleased to
tell? And all the while the necklace had been lying in her own desk,
and she had put it there with her own hands!

It was marvellous to him that the woman could have been so false and
have sustained her falsehood so well. And this was his cousin, his
well-beloved,--as a cousin, certainly well-beloved; and there had,
doubtless, been times in which he had thought that he would make
her his wife! He could not but smile as he stood looking at her,
contemplating all the confusion which she had caused, an