"I do not at all wish to pry into your secrets," he said.
Secrets from him! Some such exclamation was on her lips, when she remembered that her special business, at the present moment, was to acknowledge a secret which had been kept from him. "It is unkind of you to speak to me in that way," she said.
"I am quite in earnest. I do not wish to pry into your secrets. But I hear rumours which seem to be substantiated; and though, of course, I could stay away from you—"
"Oh,—whatever happens, pray, pray do not stay away from me. Where am I to look for advice if you stay away from me?"
"That is all very well, Lizzie."
"Ah, Frank! if you desert me, I am undone."
"It is, of course, true that some of the police have been with you lately?"
"Major Mackintosh was here, about the end of last week,—a most kind man, altogether a gentleman, and I was so glad to see him."
"What made him come?"
"What made him come?" How should she tell her story? "Oh, he came, of course, about the robbery. They have found out everything. It was the jeweller, Benjamin, who concocted it all. That horrid sly girl I had, Patience Crabstick, put him up to it. And there were two regular housebreakers. They have found it all out at last."