Mary had had hard work to get at the truth of the matter. Walter had shuffled and doubled, and tried every means in his power to put her off with half-answers. But she had refused to be put off.
"What on earth made the girl tell of me?" Walter burst forth angrily at last.
Then Mary explained how things had oozed out; and when Walter heard of the policeman's call, he turned yellow-white again, and was like a terrified child.
"I can't see the man, Mary! I can't see the man!" says he, shaking with fright. "You'll see him, there's a dear! I'm going to bed," says he.
But Mary wouldn't let him off. She had given her word to the policeman, she said.
Walter gave in then, and made a clean breast of everything from first to last—all about how he'd got into difficulties, and how he'd used all the money he could lay hands on, and how he'd begged the watch and chain from me for just a few days, meaning to take them to a pawnbroker's, and how the temptation had come over him to sell them outright, and how of course he was very miserable, and never, never, would do anything of the sort again.
But the miserableness wasn't repentance! Walter minded being found out—not being in the wrong!
The policeman was so far satisfied with what he heard, that he left it in Mary's hands to get back the watch and chain from the jeweller's in the morning: which she was happily able to do, since he had not sold it. I did not hear till long after that Mary had to pay a good deal over what Walter had received for it. Thanks to his extravagance, the only way in which she could do this was by parting with the two or three trinkets of value which had come to her from her mother.
"Kitty, it has been a foolish business—worse than foolish," Mary said, when her story was ended.
And that was true enough. It did look very foolish, very wrong. I felt as miserable as Walter could have felt: partly knowing how I'd been in the wrong: partly a sort of disappointment in him. I did think, after I'd done and borne so much, he needn't have been so ready to say hard words of me. I'm almost afraid that was the uppermost thought with me, as I sat on the floor, hiding my face in Mary's dress; and yet there was real sorrow below.