"You take your oath on it?"
Madeline hesitated for a moment. She would like to clear Rufus Sterne's character if possible. But he had just as much proof of perjury as she had unless this man confessed, and he refused to confess unless she promised secrecy.
"I take my oath on it," she answered.
"Then he paid me twenty pounds."
"Only twenty pounds?"
"He offered me five at first, then ten, then fifteen; but when he rose to twenty it was too much to resist. He said 'twouldn't harm Sterne. That every gentleman got drunk now and then, and that as he was drunk it might be as well to prove he got drunk here as anywhere else."
"And you didn't serve him with any drink?"
"I never served him with a drink in my life. He passed the "Three Anchors" that night, but he didn't call."
"Thank you; that is all I wish to know."
"And you'll not set the police on me?"