sat
upon the bed awe-struck and mute. "Perhaps I had better get dressed,"
she said at last.

"I feared how it might be," said Mrs. Carbuncle, holding Lizzie's
hand affectionately.

"Yes;--you said so."

"The prize was so great."

"I always was a-telling my lady--" began Crabstick.

"Hold your tongue!" said Lizzie angrily. "I suppose the police will
do the best they can, Mrs. Carbuncle?"

"Oh yes;--and so will Lord George."

"I think I'll lie down again for a little while," said Lizzie. "I
feel so sick I hardly know what to do. If I were to lie down for a
little I should be better." With much difficulty she got them to
leave her. Then, before she again undressed herself, she bolted the
door that still had a bolt, and turned the lock in the other. Having
done this, she took out from under her pillow the little parcel which
had been in her desk,--and, untying it, perceived that her dear
diamond necklace was perfect, and quite safe.

The enterprising adventurers had, indeed, stolen the iron case,
but they had stolen nothing else. The reader must not suppose
that because Lizzie had preserved her jewels, she was therefore a
consenting party to the abstraction of the box. The theft had been
a genuine theft, planned with great skill, carried out with much
ingenuity, one in the perpetration of which money had been spent,--a
theft which for a while baffled the police of England, and which was
supposed to be very creditable to those who had been engaged in it.
But the box, and nothing but the box, had fallen into the hands of
the thieves.

Lizzie's silence when the abstraction of the box was made known to
her,--her silence as to the fact that the necklace was at that moment
within the grasp of her own fingers,--was not at first the effect
of deliberate fraud. She was ashamed to tell them that she brought
the box empty from Portray, having the diamonds in her own keeping
because she had feared that the box might be stolen. And then it
occurred to her, quick as thought could flash, that it might be well
that Mr. Camperdown should be made to believe that they had been
stolen. And so she kept her secret. The reflections of the next
half-hour told her how very great would now be her difficulties.
But, as she had not disclosed the truth at first, she could hardly
disclose it now.

CHAPTER XLV

The Journey to London

When we left Lady Eustace alone in her bedroom at the Carlisle hotel
after the discovery of th