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.'

'How do you know it wasn't him,' says master very sharp. 'If you didn't take it, how do you know who did?'

'How do I know?' I cried, forgetting for a moment who I was speaking to. 'Why, if you'd half a grain of sense among the lot of you, you'd know why I know it's not him. If you felt to a young man like I feel to James, you'd know in your heart that he could not have done such a thing, not if there was fifty diamond necklaces found in fifty pockets on him at the same time.'

They said nothing, but Mr. Oliver chuckled in his collar till I'd have liked to strangle him with my two hands round his fat throat. And I went on—

'I'm as sure he didn't do it as I am that I didn't do it myself, and as he would have been that I didn't if he had really loved me, as he said, instead of believing that I could do such a thing, and trying to save me with a black lie—God bless him for it.'

And James he never looked at me, but he said again, 'Don't mind her—she's off her head with fright about me. You send me off to prison as soon as you like, sir.'