his cousin's
appearance on the occasion, informing him that she had already been
formally summoned. Whereupon he wrote to Lizzie, telling her what
she had better do, in the kindest manner,--as though there had been
no cessation of their friendly intercourse, offering to go with her
into court,--and naming an hotel at which he would advise her to
stay during the very short time that she need remain in London. She
answered this letter at once. She was sorry to say that she was much
too ill to travel, or even to think of travelling. Such was her
present condition that she doubted greatly whether she would ever
again be able to leave the two rooms to which she was at present
confined. All that remained to her in life was to watch her own blue
waves from the casement of her dear husband's castle,--that casement
at which he had loved to sit, and to make herself happy in the smiles
of her child. A few months would see the last of it all, and then,
perhaps, they who had trampled her to death would feel some pangs of
remorse as they thought of her early fate. She had given her evidence
once and had told all the truth,--though she was now aware that she
need not have done so, as she had been defrauded of a vast amount of
property through the gross negligence of the police. She was advised
now by persons who seemed really to understand the law, that she
could recover the value of the diamonds which her dear, dear husband
had given her, from the freeholders of the parish in which the
robbery had taken place. She feared that her health did not admit of
the necessary exertion. Were it otherwise she would leave no stone
unturned to recover the value of her property,--not on account of its
value, but because she had been so ill-treated by Mr. Camperdown and
the police. Then she added a postscript to say that it was quite out
of the question that she should take any journey for the next six
months.

The reader need hardly be told that Greystock did not believe a word
of what she said. He felt sure that she was not ill. There was an
energy in the letter hardly compatible with illness. But he could
not make her come. He certainly did not intend to go down again to
Scotland to fetch her,--and even had he done so he could not have
forced her to accompany him. He could only go to the attorneys
concerned, and read to them so much of the letter as he thought fit
to communicate to them. "That won't do at all," said an old gentleman
at the he