"Patience Crabstick will tell it all, without any help from me. Don't you see that the whole thing must be known? She'll say where the diamonds were found;—and how did they come there, if you didn't put them there? As for telling, there'll be telling enough. You've only two things to do."
"What are they, Lord George?"
"Go off, like Mr. Benjamin; or else make a clean breast of it. Send for John Eustace and tell him the whole. For his brother's sake he'll make the best of it. It will all be published, and then, perhaps, there will be an end of it."
"I couldn't do that, Lord George!" said Lizzie, bursting into tears.
"You ask me, and I can only tell you what I think. That you should be able to keep the history of the diamonds a secret, does not seem to me to be upon the cards. No doubt people who are rich, and are connected with rich people, and have great friends,—who are what the world call swells,—have great advantages over their inferiors when they get into trouble. You are the widow of a baronet, and you have an uncle a bishop, and another a dean, and a countess for an aunt. You have a brother-in-law and a first-cousin in Parliament, and your father was an admiral. The other day you were engaged to marry a peer."
"Oh yes," said Lizzie, "and Lady Glencora Palliser is my particular friend."
"She is; is she? So much the better. Lady Glencora, no doubt, is a very swell among swells."
"The Duke of Omnium would do anything for me," said Lizzie with enthusiasm.
"If you were nobody, you would, of course, be indicted for perjury, and would go to prison. As it is, if you will tell all your story to one of your swell friends, I think it very likely that you may be pulled through. I should say that Mr. Eustace, or your cousin Greystock, would be the best."
"Why couldn't you do it? You know it all. I told you because—because—because I thought you would be the kindest to me."