Mr. Withers was the policeman, and a valued acquaintance of Stellamaris. “Go away, darling,” said Lady Blount. “This has nothing to do with you.” But Stella had been accustomed to rule in that house. Anything that happened in it was her concern. Besides, she would have ugly things hidden away from her no longer; and here was obviously an ugly thing. “No, my dears,” she said in her clear voice; “I must stay. Tell me, why is Eliza crying?” “She's a wicked thief,” said Lady Blount. Then Stella caught sight of a couple of rings and a brooch and a five-pound note lying on a table. “Did she steal those?” Sir Oliver explained. The articles had been stolen during their absence in town. He had applied to the police, with the result that the theft had been traced to Eliza. So that was a thief--that miserable, broad-faced girl. Stella looked at her with fearful curiosity. She had heard of thieves and conceived them to be desperate outcasts herding in the sunless alleys of great cities, their hideous faces pitted with crime, as with smallpox; she never imagined that they came into sheltered homes. “What is Mr. Withers going to do with her?” “Take her to prison,” said Sir Oliver, whereat the culprit wailed louder. “What is prison?” asked Stella. “A place where they lock you up for months, sometimes for years, in a stone cell, and make you sleep on a plank bed, and you have to pick oakum all day long, and are known by a number, and--er--” “Please, Oliver!” remonstrated Lady Blount. “I want to know, Auntie,” said Stella, a gracious, white-clad figure standing in the midst of them. She turned to the policeman. “Are you going to take her to prison?” “If Sir Oliver charges her, miss.” “Of course I 'm going to charge her,” cried Sir Oliver. “It 's my duty.” He drew himself up. “I should be failing in it if I did n't.” “Then it depends on you, Uncle, whether she is locked up or goes free?” “That's so, miss,” replied the policeman. “I can't arrest her unless some one charges her.” “What do you say, Auntie?” “It 's very painful, dear. That is why I did n't want you to come in. But people who do these things have to be punished.” “But why have they to be punished?” Stella asked, feeling curiously calm and remote from them all. “They must be made examples of, dear. They must n't be let loose on society,” said Sir Oliver. “It's a duty to one's country, a duty to one's neighbours. I 'm afraid you don't understand, Stella. I implore you to leave this matter in our hands.” It was strange how the girl whom they had reared in blank ignorance of life remained supreme arbiter of the situation. She said: “You are afraid that if she were set free, she would rob somebody else?” “Of course she would,” said Sir Oliver, testily. “Would you, Eliza?” asked Stellamaris. Thus appealed to, the guilty little wretch threw herself on the ground, in horrible abasement, at Stella's feet.