“’Tis a common theft, and nothing more nor less,” he said.  “You’ve been warned more than once, and you knew right well that, if you persisted, this would be the end of it.”

Well, I made ready for a dig back, of course, and was going to surprise the man; but somehow he spoke so kind and generous and ’peared to be so properly sorry for me, that I struck another note.  I thought I saw a chance of getting on his blind side and being let off, so I kept away from such a ticklish subject as the canister.  Instead, I spoke very earnest of my hopes for the future, and promised faithful as I’d try to see the matter of pheasants and such like from his point of view.  And I told him that I was tokened to a good girl—­same as he was—­and that ’twould break her very heart if I got a month, and very likely make her throw me over and wreck my life, and so on.  I worked myself up into a proper heat, and pleaded all I knew with the man.  I implored him to put mercy before justice for once, and assured him that ’twould pay him a thousandfold to let me off.  I was contrite, and allowed that no doubt my views on the subject of game might be altogether mistaken.  I took his word for it that he was right and I was wrong.  In fact, I never talked so clever in all my life afore; but at the end it was that the really thrilling thing fell out.  For then, just to make a good wind-up like, I called home my father’s oft-spoken words, and said to the man the very same speech that I’d said to him more’n two years afore, when I was hid in the rhododendron bush.

“Don’t you do it, or else you’ll rue it!” I said.  And then I stopped, and my heart stopped too, I’ll swear, for in an instant moment I saw that Squire remembered when and where he’d heard that warning afore.  He turned a awful sort o’ green colour, and started from his chair.  Then he fell back in it again and stared upon me as if I was a spectrum rose out of a grave.  He couldn’t speak for a bit, but presently he linked up my voice with the past, and squared it out and came to his senses.  But he didn’t twist, nor turn, nor quail afore me.  In fact, when he recovered a bit, he was a good deal more interested than frightened.

“Those words!” he said.  “Could it be—­is it possible that you—­”

“God’s my judge, Squire Champernowne, that I didn’t mean to touch on that,” I answered. “’Twas dead and buried in my heart, and the kind words you have said to me would have made me keep it there for evermore.  I ban’t your judge, though you be going to be mine, and I didn’t speak them words in no sense to threaten, and I didn’t speak ’em to remind you as you’d ever heard ’em before.  ’Twas just because the words be solemn poetry,” I said. “’Twas just because of that I used ’em, and for no other reason.”

He nodded and considered.

“Tell me,” he answered in a simple, quiet way—­“tell me everything you know about that night from the beginning.”

And so I did.  I hid nought and explained all, even down to my feelings in the matter, and my wish, man to man, to give him another chance for to do right.  And I never see a male creature so much moved as Squire was when I telled the tale.