That was just what I did not know myself; for I was completely dumbfoundered by this sudden attack from a quarter where I had anticipated no danger. Why on earth could not Sir Bartholomew have stayed in the East, as he had been supposed to be going to do? In vain did I rack my brains for some way of extricating myself from this dilemma. Not a single idea would occur to me, so I simply remained silent—a course which had, at all events, the recommendation of not committing me one way or other.
Kitty waited for a little while; and then, perceiving that I did not intend to answer, she said:
"Am I to understand by your silence that you are unable to contradict the truth of what Sir Bartholomew said?"
"Oh, if you choose to understand it so, m'm, of course I can't help that," replied I, shrugging my shoulders, and still evading a direct admission of the charge which it was evidently useless for me to dispute.
"I do not choose it at all," she returned quickly; "on the contrary, I should greatly prefer to find that you are able to clear yourself. But I wish to have a definite answer from you, either yes or no, when I ask—Is the thing true?"
I hesitated for a moment. Then, seeing that I could gain nothing by denying, and that to tell a lie about it would only sink me yet lower in her eyes without doing me the least good, I replied desperately, "Well—yes."
For a few minutes she did not speak, and sat with her head resting on her hand, and apparently reflecting about something. At last she said:
"I have been considering what to do. My mother thinks that you should at once be given in charge of the police; but that I do not feel inclined to do, after what we went through together in Corsica the other day, and the way in which you behaved then. Besides, I have had no cause of complaint since you have been with me, and I think you have served me well—whatever you may have done elsewhere. Therefore, though of course I dismiss you, yet I wish to treat you with no needless harshness. I propose, then, that you should continue to be my maid for a day longer, so as not to leave me till we arrive in London. Thus you will not be turned adrift in a foreign country, as would be the case if I discharged you here, on the spot; you will also have been brought back to whence you came, and be left in no worse position than you were before entering our service. As for your wages, I shall, of course, pay them to you fully. If you like this arrangement—which is, I think, as favourable a one as you can expect—I am quite willing to make it. I daresay some people would say I ought not to let you stay an hour longer in my service; and that all the thanks I shall get is to be laughed at, and perhaps robbed, by a person who has already shown herself to be a forger. But I would rather take my chance of that than have to reproach myself with having wronged you."
I did not like her to think worse of me than I deserved, and for a moment I felt very much inclined to tell her who I was, in order that she might see that circumstances had really compelled me to act as I had done. For if I had not forged a character to start with, how could I ever have obtained a chance of earning one honestly? I think I should inevitably have yielded to the inclination, and imparted my history to her there and then, if there had been anything in her manner to make me believe that I had won a footing, however low down, in her affection—that she cared about me just one little bit. But there was no such indication. She would not defraud me of one atom that might be due for the services I had rendered, because it would have wounded her own self-respect to do that. But I saw (or imagined myself to see) that the consideration she showed for me was dictated solely by a sense of justice, and not by any softer feeling; and the rising impulse to confide in her was frozen back by the cold, haughty severity of her demeanour towards one whom she regarded as a mere common cheat and forger. Consequently I only replied stiffly that I was much obliged for her offer, which I should be glad to accept; and that she might depend upon it I would not give her cause to repent of her kindness.
"Very well," she returned, "then we will consider the matter settled so, and you will leave me when we get to Charing Cross. By the by, I may as well let you know that I have not told my aunt of what I heard to-day, and that I shall not do so till after you have left. It would only fuss her needlessly."