re the glow
of sunset had died from the calm heaven he set out to walk homeward,
anxious, melancholy.

On approaching the house he suffered, as always, from quickened pulse
and heart constricted with fear. Until he knew that all was well, he
looked like a man who anticipates dread calamity. This evening, on
opening the door, he fell back terror-stricken. In the hall stood a
police-constable, surrounded by a group of women: Mrs. Peachey, her
sisters, Emma the nurse-girl, and two other servants.

'Oh, here you are at last!' exclaimed his wife, in a voice exhausted
with rage. 'You're just in time to see this beast taken off to the
lock-up. Perhaps you'll believe me now!'

'What is it? What has she done?'

'Stolen money, that's what she's done--your precious Emma! She's been at
it for a long time; I've told you some one was robbing me. So I marked
some coins in my purse, and left it in the bedroom whilst we were at
dinner; and then, when I found half-a-crown gone--and it was her evening
out, too--I sent for a policeman before she knew anything, and we made
her turn out her pockets. And there's the half-crown! Perhaps you'll
believe it this time!'

The girl's face declared her guilt; she had hardly attempted denial.
Then, with a clamour of furious verbosity, Ada enlightened her husband
on other points of Emma's behaviour. It was a long story, gathered, in
the last few minutes, partly from the culprit herself, partly from her
fellow-servants. Emma had got into the clutches of a jewellery
tallyman, one of the fellows who sell trinkets to servant-girls on the
pay-by-instalment system. She had made several purchases of gewgaws, and
had already paid three or four times their value, but was still in debt
to the tallyman, who threatened all manner of impossible proceedings
if she did not make up her arrears. Bottomless ignorance and imbecile
vanity had been the girl's ruin, aided by a grave indiscretion on
Peachey's part, of which he was to hear presently.

Some one must go to the police-station and make a formal charge. Ada
would undertake this duty with pious eagerness, enjoying it all the more
because of loud wailings and entreaties which the girl now addressed to
her master. Peachey looked at his sisters-in-law, and in neither face
perceived a compassionate softening. Fanny stood by as at a spectacle
provided for her amusement, without rancour, but equally without pity.
Beatrice was contemptuous. What right, said her cou