"About Mary?"
"Yes. It's my fault that she's ill. I took a ring out of that little table there—the gold ring with the red stone—and I made her promise not to tell. It's because she thinks she ought to tell that she's ill."
"You took it? You stole it?" Before Mrs. Kitson's simple mind an awful picture was now revealed. Here, in this little girl, whom she had preferred as a companion for her beloved Mary, was a thief, a liar, and one, as she could instantly perceive, without shame.
"You stole it!"
"Yes; here it is." Sarah laid the ring on the table.
Mrs. Kitson gazed at her with horror, dismay, and even fear.
"Why? Why? Don't you know how wrong it is to take things that don't belong to you?"
"Oh, all that!" said Sarah, waving her hand scornfully. '"I don't want the silly thing, and I don't suppose I'd have kept it, anyhow. I don't know why I've told you," she added. "But I just don't want to be bothered with Mary any more."
"Indeed, you won't be, you wicked girl," said Mrs. Kitson. "To think that I—my grand-father's—I'd never missed it. And you haven't even said you're sorry."
"I'm not," said Sarah quietly. "If Mary wasn't so tiresome and silly those sort of things wouldn't happen. She makes me——"