Mother hadn't looked at me once for ever so long, and I don't think Mary had either. I stood leaning against the dresser still, feeling like one stupefied, yet able to take in every word that Mary said, so that I never could forget any of it again. I had stopped crying. I was listening too hard to leave any time or power for tears. I heard a sort of catch in my own breath, when Mary got so far; and Mary must have heard it too, for she turned round towards me, and said— "Kitty, did you give the watch and chain to Walter?" I was startled by the sudden question, and I said, "O no!" —not stopping to think. "Then you lent them to him! But what for?" said she. "He—asked me!" I said. "Come here, Kitty," said she, and I came close. Mary took my hand in a grave sort of way, not stern now. "But if you lent him the watch and chain, you did not mean him to sell them?" I was startled again into saying "O no!" "No; so I supposed. He talked to you about loans, and raising money, and passing difficulties—did he not?" It was so exactly what he had done, that I hung my head. "Poor silly child!" Mary said. I couldn't bear to have them both looking at me, and I dropped down on the floor, hiding my face in Mary's dress. Somehow her touch was a comfort, even while it made me more ashamed. "Then he sold the watch," mother said, in a hard voice. "Yes," Mary told us. He had sold the watch and chain—sold them, after all his promises to me! To be sure, he had spoken to the jeweller of "pressing difficulties," and of hoping to buy them back in the course of a few weeks; but anybody might know what that was worth. Mary had had hard work to get at the truth of the matter. Walter had shuffled and doubled, and tried every means in his power to put her off with half-answers. But she had refused to be put off. "What on earth made the girl tell of me?" Walter burst forth angrily at last. Then Mary explained how things had oozed out; and when Walter heard of the policeman's call, he turned yellow-white again, and was like a terrified child. "I can't see the man, Mary! I can't see the man!" says he, shaking with fright. "You'll see him, there's a dear! I'm going to bed," says he. But Mary wouldn't let him off. She had given her word to the policeman, she said. Walter gave in then, and made a clean breast of everything from first to last—all about how he'd got into difficulties, and how he'd used all the money he could lay hands on, and how he'd begged the watch and chain from me for just a few days, meaning to take them to a pawnbroker's, and how the temptation had come over him to sell them outright, and how of course he was very miserable, and never, never, would do anything of the sort again. But the miserableness wasn't repentance! Walter minded being found out—not being in the wrong!