So I did, and oh!  I shall never forget it.  They took out the flannel, and the longcloth and things, and the roll of embroidery that I was going to trim them with, and rolled inside that, if you’ll believe me, there was the necklace like a shining snake coiled up.  I never said a word, being struck silly.  I didn’t cry or even say anything as people do in books when these things happen to them; but Mrs. Oliver burst out crying, God bless her for it! and my Lady said, ’O Mary, I’d never have believed it of you any more than I would of myself!’

And Mr. Oliver he said to master, ’Have all the servants into the library, William.  Perhaps 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.’