Then Alick, after drying his eyes in the darkness, put on a brave air, and told her what she had to do.
"Listen to me now. This is a low conspiracy, but if we are to defeat it, you must stick to your story. I shall have to put you in the box, for you must leave the Court without a stain on your character. First of all you must say...."
And then sitting by Bessie's side in the dark cell, with only the candle looking in on them from the outside ledge of the grill, he rehearsed the facts as they were to be given in Court—how by the cruelty of her step-father she had been shut out of the house late at night and had had to go elsewhere; how she had returned, being unwell, and wishing her mother to nurse her, and how she had been put to bed and had never left it until the constables came to take her away.
Bessie listened in silence, gazing before her like a captured sheep, and answering only by a nodding of her head.
"If the Attorney asks you anything else—no matter what—you must say you know nothing about it—-do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Say it after me then—'I know nothing about it.'"
Bessie repeated the words like a woman talking in her sleep—-"'I know nothing about it.'"
"That's all right. Leave the rest to me."
"You think I shall get off?"