the room and looked about. She'd three necklaces. They weren't much
account; but she must have them all on, or else have got them in her
pocket."

"Cradell has never gone off with her in that way. He may be a fool--"

"Oh, he is, you know. I've never seen such a fool about a woman as he
has been."

"But he wouldn't be a party to stealing a lot of trumpery trinkets,
or taking her husband's money. Indeed, I don't think he has anything
to do with it." Then Eames thought ever the circumstances of the
day, and remembered that he had certainly not seen Cradell since
the morning. It was that public servant's practice to saunter into
Eames's room in the middle of the day, and there consume bread and
cheese and beer,--in spite of an assertion which Johnny had once made
as to crumbs of biscuit bathed in ink. But on this special day he had
not done so. "I can't think he has been such a fool as that," said
Johnny.

"But he has," said Amelia. "It's dinner-time now, and where is he?
Had he any money left, Johnny?"

So interrogated, Eames disclosed a secret confided to him by his
friend which no other circumstances would have succeeded in dragging
from his breast.

"She borrowed twelve pounds from him about a fortnight since,
immediately after quarter-day. And she owed him money, too, before
that."

"Oh, what a soft!" exclaimed Amelia; "and he hasn't paid mother a
shilling for the last two months!"

"It was his money, perhaps, that Mrs Roper got from Lupex the day
before yesterday. If so, it comes to the same thing as far as she is
concerned, you know."

"And what are we to do now?" said Amelia, as she went before her
lover upstairs. "Oh, John, what will become of me if ever you serve
me in that way? What should I do if you were to go off with another
lady?"

"Lupex hasn't gone off," said Eames, who hardly knew what to say
when the matter was brought before him with so closely personal a
reference.

"But it's the same thing," said Amelia. "Hearts is divided. Hearts
that have been joined together ought never to be divided; ought
they?" And then she hung upon his arm just as they got to the
drawing-room door.

"Hearts and darts are all my eye," said Johnny. "My belief is that
a man had better never marry at all. How d'you do, Mr Lupex? Is
anything the matter?"

Mr Lupex was seated on a chair in the middle of the room, and was
leaning with his head over the back of it. So despondent was he in
his attitude that his he