"You should have done as your mother told you, you unlucky child; then we should have been able to take things as easy as any one—but—"
It was Mrs. Reierson's shrill angry voice. It was interrupted by a sound of suppressed sobbing, and then by a youthful voice rendered hoarse by passion and sorrow. I stepped nearer to the door and listened, although the task before me was most repulsive to my feelings.
"Don't talk to me any more, mother! you know that what you wanted me to do I could never have done, never in this world! and what I already have done cannot now be undone—I have nothing more to do now but to put an end to myself—if only I had the strength to—"
Here the unhappy girl's words were interrupted by loud sobbing, and some angry exclamations from her mother.
Soon after the door was opened, and the ugly old woman appeared in the doorway, while her daughter could be seen lying across the bed with her head buried in the pillows.
I have seldom felt so uncomfortable.
The mother's shrill imprecations against the police in general, and me in particular, passed me by unheeded. I only saw the young girl's deadly pale face, as she lifted it to me, and the hopeless expression of her eyes.
She was gifted, however, with a strength of mind which few persons possess. She got up hurriedly, stroked back her hair from her face, and was the first to speak.
Her voice was low, but wonderfully calm; every drop of blood seemed to have fled from her lips.
"You have come to arrest me, Mr. Monk, because I have stolen Mr. Frick's diamond. Well, I have been expecting it both yesterday and to-day. Yesterday I should probably have denied it, but to-day I don't! I have stolen the diamond—let me be taken to prison and be sentenced as soon as possible, only let it be done quickly."