She now ventured to say this, seeing by the girl’s confusion that the latter course was the one she had intended to take, or had perhaps even been suborned by a lawyer over-zealous in Mortimer Elles’s behalf to do.
“Nothing extenuate—but naught set down in malice!” she went on. “Don’t deny anything, or hold back anything, but make as light of what you did see as possible!”
“I think I hear my aunt calling me!” Jane Anne exclaimed suddenly. “I will just run and see what she wants, and be back in a moment.”
Miss Giles admired Jane Anne’s method of gaining time. Did she really go to attend on her aunt, or did she simply stand outside the door for a while? In five minutes she came back, looking somehow quite a different woman, and said simply:
“I want you to tell me how I can help him, ma’am?”
“Say simply what you know, and no more!”
“Then,” said Jane Anne, her eyes downcast, “I had better write to Mr. Perkins!”
“Who is he?”
“The lawyer gentleman who came here and saw me. He took down what I said on a piece of paper.”
“Perhaps in what you said then you—exaggerated a little—did not you?”