“Nothing” said Sarah.

“She cries and cries,” said Mrs. Kitson, about whose person little white strings and tapes seemed to be continually appearing and disappearing.

“Perhaps she’s eaten something?” suggested Lady Charlotte.

When Mrs. Kitson had departed, Lady Charlotte turned to Sarah.

“What have you done to the poor child?” she said.

“Nothing,” said Sarah.  “I never want to see her again.”

“Then you have done something?” said Lady Charlotte.

“She’s always crying,” said Sarah, “and she calls her kitten Alice,” as though that were explanation sufficient.

The strange truth remains, however, that the night that followed this conversation was the first unpleasant one that Sarah had ever spent; she remained awake during a great part of it.  It was as though the hours that she had spent on that other afternoon, compelling, from her own dark room, Mary’s will, had attached Mary to her.  Mary was there with her now, in her bedroom.  Mary, red-nosed, sniffing, her eyes wide and staring.

“I want to go home.”

“Silly little thing,” thought Sarah.  “I wish I’d never played with her.”

In the morning Sarah was tired and white-faced.  She would speak to no one.  After luncheon she found her hat and coat for herself, let herself out of the house, and walked to Mrs. Kitson’s, and was shown into the wide, untidy drawing-room, where books and flowers and papers had a lost and strayed air as though a violent wind had blown through the place and disturbed everything.

Mrs. Kitson came in.

“You, dear?” she said.

Sarah looked at the room and then at Mrs. Kitson.  Her eyes said:  “What a place! What a woman! What a fool!”

“Yes, I’ve come to explain about Mary.”

“About Mary?”

“Yes.  It’s my fault that she’s ill.  I took a ring out of that little table there—­the gold ring with the red stone—­and I made her promise not to tell.  It’s because she thinks she ought to tell that she’s ill.”

“You took it? You stole it?” Before Mrs. Kitson’s simple mind an awful picture was now revealed.  Here, in this little girl, whom she had preferred as a companion for her beloved Mary, was a thief, a liar, and one, as she could instantly perceive, without shame.

“You stole it!”

“Yes; here it is.”  Sarah laid the ring on the table.

Mrs. Kitson gazed at her with horror, dismay, and even fear.

“Why?  Why?  Don’t you know how wrong it is to take things that don’t belong to you?”

“Oh, all that!” said Sarah, waving her hand scornfully. ’"I don’t want the silly thing, and I don’t suppose I’d have kept it, anyhow.  I don’t know why I’ve told you,” she added.  “But I just don’t want to be bothered with Mary any more.”

“Indeed, you won’t be, you wicked girl,” said Mrs. Kitson.  “To think that I—­my grand-father’s—­I’d never missed it.  And you haven’t even said you’re sorry.”