o bear against the sinners who, between
them, had succeeded in making away with the Eustace diamonds. "It
was a most unworthy conclusion to such a plot," he said. "It always
happens that they catch the small fry, and let the large fish
escape."

"Whom did you specially want to catch?" asked Lady Glencora.

"Lady Eustace, and Lord George de Bruce Carruthers,--as he calls
himself."

"I quite agree with you, Mr. Bonteen, that it would be very nice to
send the brother of a marquis to Botany Bay, or wherever they go now;
and that it would do a deal of good to have the widow of a baronet
locked up in the Penitentiary; but you see, if they didn't happen to
be guilty, it would be almost a shame to punish them for the sake of
the example."

"They ought to have been guilty," said Barrington Erle.

"They were guilty," protested Mr. Bonteen.

Mr. Palliser was enjoying ten minutes of recreation before he went
back to his letters. "I can't say that I attended to the case very
closely," he observed, "and perhaps, therefore, I am not entitled to
speak about it."

"If people only spoke about what they attended to, how very little
there would be to say,--eh, Mr. Bonteen?" This observation came, of
course, from Lady Glencora.

"But as far as I could hear," continued Mr. Palliser, "Lord George
Carruthers cannot possibly have had anything to do with it. It was a
stupid mistake on the part of the police."

"I'm not quite so sure, Mr. Palliser," said Bonteen.

"I know Coldfoot told me so." Now Sir Harry Coldfoot was at this time
Secretary of State for the Home affairs, and in a matter of such
importance of course had an opinion of his own.

"We all know that he had money dealings with Benjamin, the Jew," said
Mrs. Bonteen.

"Why didn't he come forward as a witness when he was summoned?" asked
Mr. Bonteen triumphantly. "And as for the woman, does anybody mean to
say that she should not have been indicted for perjury?"

"The woman, as you are pleased to call her, is my particular friend,"
said Lady Glencora. When Lady Glencora made any such statement as
this,--and she often did make such statements,--no one dared to
answer her. It was understood that Lady Glencora was not to be
snubbed, though she was very much given to snubbing others. She had
attained this position for herself by a mixture of beauty, rank,
wealth, and courage;--but the courage had, of the four, been her
greatest mainstay.

Then Lord Chiltern, who was playi