remarks from the magistrate, and probably
also from some lawyers employed to defend the prisoners. She went
to bed in fairly good spirits, but in the morning she was cowed and
unhappy. She dressed herself from head to foot in black, and prepared
for herself a heavy black veil. She had ordered from the livery
stable a brougham for the occasion, thinking it wise to avoid the
display of her own carriage. She breakfasted early, and then took a
large glass of wine to support her. When Frank called for her at a
quarter to ten, she was quite ready, and grasped his hand almost
without a word. But she looked into his face with her eyes filled
with tears. "It will soon be over," he said. She pressed his hand,
and made him a sign to show that she was ready to follow him to the
door. "The case will come on at once," he said, "so that you will not
be kept waiting."

"Oh, you are so good;--so good to me." She pressed his arm, and did
not speak another word on their way to the police-court.

There was a great crowd about the office, which was in a little
by-street, and so circumstanced that Lizzie's brougham could hardly
make its way up to the door. But way was at once made for her when
Frank handed her out of it, and the policemen about the place were as
courteous to her as though she had been the Lord Chancellor's wife.
Evil-doing will be spoken of with bated breath and soft words even by
policemen, when the evil-doer comes in a carriage, and with a title.
Lizzie was led at once into a private room, and told that she would
be kept there only a very few minutes. Frank made his way into the
court and found that two magistrates had just seated themselves on
the bench. One would have sufficed for the occasion; but this was
a case of great interest, and even police-magistrates are human in
their interests. Greystock was allowed to get round to the bench, and
to whisper a word or two to the gentleman who was to preside. The
magistrate nodded his head, and then the case began.

The unfortunate Mr. Benjamin had been sent back in durance vile
from Vienna, and was present in the court. With him, as joint
malefactor, stood Mr. Smiler, the great housebreaker, a huge, ugly,
resolute-looking scoundrel, possessed of enormous strength, who was
very intimately known to the police, with whom he had had various
dealings since he had been turned out upon the town to earn his bread
some fifteen years before. Indeed, long before that he had known the