ot tell my husband. He would kill me if I told him what I have done.
I have kept it a secret from everybody but you--and you forced it from
me. Ah, what shall I do, Lord Steyne? for I am very, very unhappy!"

Lord Steyne made no reply except by beating the devil's tattoo and
biting his nails. At last he clapped his hat on his head and flung out
of the room. Rebecca did not rise from her attitude of misery until
the door slammed upon him and his carriage whirled away. Then she rose
up with the queerest expression of victorious mischief glittering in
her green eyes. She burst out laughing once or twice to herself, as
she sat at work, and sitting down to the piano, she rattled away a
triumphant voluntary on the keys, which made the people pause under her
window to listen to her brilliant music.

That night, there came two notes from Gaunt House for the little woman,
the one containing a card of invitation from Lord and Lady Steyne to a
dinner at Gaunt House next Friday, while the other enclosed a slip of
gray paper bearing Lord Steyne's signature and the address of Messrs.
Jones, Brown, and Robinson, Lombard Street.

Rawdon heard Becky laughing in the night once or twice. It was only
her delight at going to Gaunt House and facing the ladies there, she
said, which amused her so. But the truth was that she was occupied
with a great number of other thoughts. Should she pay off old Briggs
and give her her conge? Should she astonish Raggles by settling his
account? She turned over all these thoughts on her pillow, and on the
next day, when Rawdon went out to pay his morning visit to the Club,
Mrs. Crawley (in a modest dress with a veil on) whipped off in a
hackney-coach to the City: and being landed at Messrs. Jones and
Robinson's bank, presented a document there to the authority at the
desk, who, in reply, asked her "How she would take it?"

She gently said "she would take a hundred and fifty pounds in small
notes and the remainder in one note": and passing through St. Paul's
Churchyard stopped there and bought the handsomest black silk gown for
Briggs which money could buy; and which, with a kiss and the kindest
speeches, she presented to the simple old spinster.

Then she walked to Mr. Raggles, inquired about his children
affectionately, and gave him fifty pounds on account. Then she went to
the livery-man from whom she jobbed her carriages and gratified him
with a similar sum. "And I hope this will be a less