s some one else is in it too.'

But nobody said a word to say that it wasn't me, and indeed how
could they?

I should think it's like being had up for murder, standing there in
the library with all the servants holding off from me as if I had
got something catching, and master and my Lady and Mr. and Mrs.
Oliver in leather armchairs, all of a row, looking like a bench of
magistrates. I could not think, though I tried hard--I could only
feel as if I was drowning and fighting for breath.

'Now, Mary,' says Master, 'what have you got to say?'

'I never touched it, sir,' I said; 'I never put it there; I don't
know who did; and may God forgive them, for I never could.'

Then my Lady said, 'Mary, I can hardly believe it of you even now,
but why wouldn't you let us have the key of your box?'

Then I turned hot and cold all of a minute, and I looked round, and
there wasn't a face that looked kind at me except Mr. Oliver's, and
he nodded at me, taking snuff all over his fat white waistcoat.

'Speak up, girl,' he said, 'speak up.'

So then I said, 'I'm a-going to be married, my Lady, and it was bits
of things I'd got towards my wedding clothes.'

I looked at James to see if he believed it, and his face was like
lead, and his eyes wild that used to be so jolly, and to see him
look like that made my heart stand still, and I cried out--

'O my God, strike me down dead, for live I can't after this!'

And at that, James spoke up, and he said, speaking very quick and
steady, 'I wish to confess that I took it, and I put it in her box,
thinking to take it away again after. We were to have been married,
and I wanted the money to start in a little pub.'

And everybody stood still, and you could have heard a pin drop, and
Mr. Oliver went on nodding his head and taking snuff till I could
have killed him for it; and I looked at James, and I could have
fallen at his feet and worshipped him, for I saw in a minute why he
said it. He believed it was me, and he wanted to save me. So then I
said to master--

'The thing was found in my box, sir, and I'll take the consequences
if I have to be hanged for it. But don't you believe a word James
says. He never touched it. It wasn't him.'

'How do you know it wasn't him,' says master very sharp. 'If you
didn't take it, how do you know who did?'

'How do I know?' I cried, forgetting for a moment who I was speaking
to. 'Why, if you'd half a grain of sense among the lot of you, you'd
know