The lawyer paced the floor excitedly, his features working. Suddenly he paused before his wife, and said in a whisper:
“Are you sure the girl is honest?”
“As sure as that I am—the treacherous cat!”
“Are you sure, Laura, that she hasn’t stolen something of yours—a jewel, a bit of lace, or a trinket?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” answered the obtuse Mrs. Blight. “She’s had no chance to take anything of mine since she came into this house. Ellen’s been sewing in my bedroom every day from morning till night.”
“Are you sure—”
“You’re worse than the solicitor-general in the Tichborne case, with that eternal repetition,” snapped Mrs. Blight angrily. “‘Would you be surprised to hear?’—‘Are you sure?’—I’m not sure of anything, Charles, except that we are lost, ruined, and undone. Yes, I am sure that what you’re thinking of can’t be done. I won’t be dragged into court; I won’t swear to a lie, for I’d be sure to be caught. I won’t be publicly disgraced in an attempt to ruin the girl. We shouldn’t deceive Aunt Wroat, and she’d get a keener lawyer than you are to turn you and me inside out.”
“You needn’t tell all that to the whole house, servants included,” exclaimed Mr. Blight. “Our game is up, unless this girl is got rid of. We can turn her out of the house to-night, and that we will do. But, first of all, we will go up stairs and argue the case with Aunt Wroat.”
“I haven’t told you all,” said Mrs. Blight, still weeping. “Aunt Wroat is not deaf at all, and heard you call her an old cat, and an old nuisance.”
“It was you called her so!”