“I am sorry to tell you, that we are required to search all persons arrested under similar charges, and in the next room a female detective will receive and retain every thing in your possession, except your clothing.  You are suspected of having secreted money, jewelry and some very valuable papers.”

“Suspected of being a common thief!  I am as innocent as any angel beside the throne of Christ!  Save me at least from the degradation of being searched.  Here is my basket, and here is my purse.”

She handed him the worn leather pocket-book, which contained only the few pennies reserved to pay her passage across the ferry, and turned the pocket of her dress inside cut.

At the tap of a hand-bell, a tall, angular woman opened the door of an adjoining room.

“Mrs. Foster, you will very carefully examine the prisoner, and search her clothing for papers, as well as valuables.”

“Spare me at least this indignity!” cried the shuddering girl.

“Come with me, madam.  We have no choice.”

When the door closed behind her, the constable walked up and down the floor.

“How deceitful appearances are!  That woman looks as pure and innocent as an angel, and I half believed her protestations; but here in the basket, sure enough, hidden at the bottom, are the jewelry and the gold.  No sign of the papers, but she may have destroyed them.

“Thief or not, she is a grand beauty; and if her heart was not in that prayer she put up just now, she is a grand actress also.  This is a beastly trade of ours, hunting down and trapping the unwary.  Sometimes I feel no better than a sleuth-hound, and that girl’s eyes went through and through me a while ago like a two-edged dirk.”

As he vented his views of his profession, one of the policemen lighted his pipe and puffed vigorously.

Mrs. Foster came back, followed by her victim.

“I find absolutely nothing secreted on the prisoner.”

“No papers of any description?”

“None, sir.”

“Madam, your basket contains the missing jewelry and money, at least a portion of it, and I shall place it in the hands of the sheriff.”

“The money and jewels are not mine.  They belong to my mother, to whom they were given by her father; and she needs the money at this moment—­”

“Let me advise you to say as little as possible for your own sake; because your words will be weighed against you.”

“I speak only the truth, and it will, it must, vindicate me.  What papers are you searching for?”

“General Darrington’s will.  It was stolen with the money.  Here is yesterday’s paper, with an account of the whole affair, telegraphed from X——.  If you need to learn anything, you will understand when you read it.”