"Exactly;—and then you put them into your desk here, in this house?"
"Yes,—sir."
"I should tell you, Lady Eustace, that I had not a doubt about this before I came here. For some time past I have thought that it must be so; and latterly the confessions of two of the accomplices have made it certain to me. One of the housebreakers and the jeweller will be tried for the felony, and I am afraid that you must undergo the annoyance of being one of the witnesses."
"What will they do to me, Major Mackintosh?" Lizzie now for the first time looked up into his eyes, and felt that they were kind. Could he be her rock? He did not speak to her like an enemy;—and then, too, he would know better than any man alive how she might best escape from her trouble.
"They will ask you to tell the truth."
"Indeed I will do that," said Lizzie,—not aware that, after so many lies, it might be difficult to tell the truth.
"And you will probably be asked to repeat it, this way and that, in a manner that will be troublesome to you. You see that here in London, and at Carlisle, you have—given incorrect versions."
"I know I have. But the necklace was my own. There was nothing dishonest;—was there, Major Mackintosh? When they came to me at Carlisle I was so confused that I hardly knew what to tell them. And when I had once—given an incorrect version, you know, I didn't know how to go back."
The major was not so well acquainted with Lizzie as is the reader, and he pitied her. "I can understand all that," he said.
How much kinder he was than Lord George had been when she confessed the truth to him. Here would be a rock! And such a handsome man as he was, too,—not exactly a Corsair, as he was great in authority over the London police,—but a powerful, fine fellow, who would know what to do with swords and pistols as well as any Corsair;—and one, too, no doubt, who would understand poetry! Any such dream, however, was altogether unavailing, as the major had a wife at home and seven children. "If you will only tell me what to do, I will do it," she said, looking up into his face with entreaty, and pressing her hands together in supplication.