he box,--and
he told that story also, treating Lizzie with great tenderness as he
did so. Lizzie, all this time, was sitting behind her veil in the
private room, and did not hear a word of what was going on. Then
he came to the robbery in Hertford Street. He would prove by Lady
Eustace that the diamonds were left by her in a locked desk,--were so
deposited, though all her friends believed them to have been taken
at Carlisle; and he would, moreover, prove by accomplices that they
were stolen by two men,--the younger prisoner at the bar being one
of them, and the witness who would be adduced, the other,--that they
were given up by these men to the elder prisoner, and that a certain
sum had been paid by him for the execution of the two robberies.
There was much more of it;--but to the reader, who knows it all,
it would be but a thrice-told tale. He then said that he first
proposed to take the evidence of Lady Eustace, the lady who had been
in possession of the diamonds when they were stolen. Then Frank
Greystock left the court, and returned with poor Lizzie on his arm.

She was handed to a chair, and, after she was sworn, was told that
she might sit down. But she was requested to remove her veil, which
she had replaced as soon as she had kissed the book. The first
question asked her was very easy. Did she remember the night at
Carlisle? Would she tell the history of what occurred on that night?
When the box was stolen, were the diamonds in it? No; she had taken
the diamonds out for security, and had kept them under her pillow.
Then came a bitter moment, in which she had to confess her perjury
before the Carlisle bench;--but even that seemed to pass off
smoothly. The magistrate asked one severe question. "Do you
mean to say, Lady Eustace, that you gave false evidence on that
occasion,--knowing it to be false?" "I was in such a state, sir,
from fear, that I did not know what I was saying," exclaimed Lizzie,
bursting into tears and stretching forth towards the bench her two
clasped hands with the air of a suppliant. From that moment the
magistrate was altogether on her side,--and so were the public. Poor
ignorant, ill-used young creature;--and then so lovely! That was the
general feeling. But she had not as yet come beneath the harrow of
the learned gentleman on the other side, whose best talents were due
to Mr. Benjamin. Then she told all she knew about the other robbery.
She certainly had not said, when examined on that oc