I bowed again. "Madam," said I, "whatever I have, and my poor flesh and blood and soul also, are at the service of not only your sister but her family." I marvelled much as I spoke thus to see no flush of shameful consciousness overspread the maid's face, but none did, and she continued speaking with that sharpness of hers, both as to pale look and voice, which wounded like cold steel, which leaves an additional sting because of the frost in it. "Know you not, sir," said she, "that we cannot suffer a man in your position, a--a--to purchase my sister's wardrobe?" Then, before I knew what she was about to do, in went her hand to a broidered pocket which hung at her girdle, and out she drew a flashing store of rings and brooches, and one long necklace flashing with green stones. "Here, take these," she cried out. "I have no money, but such an insult I will not suffer, that my sister goes clad at your expense to the ball to-night. Take these; they are five times the value of the goods." I would in that minute have given ten years of my life had Mistress Catherine Cavendish been a man and I could have felled her to the ground, and no man knowing what I believed I knew could have blamed me. The flashes of red and green from those rings and gewgaws which she held out seemed to pass my eyes to my very soul. "Take them," she said. "Why do you not take them, sir?" "I have no need of jewels, madam," I said, "and whatever the servant hath is his master's by right, and his master doth but take his own, and no discredit to him." She fairly wrung her hands in her helpless wrath, and the gems glittered anew. "But, but," she stammered out, "know you the full result of this, Harry Wingfield? She, my sister Mary, thinks that I--I--sent to England for the goods for her; she knows that I have some acquaintance with what she hath done, and she--she is blessing me for it, and I cannot deny what she thinks. I--I--cannot tell her what you, you have done, lest, lest--" To my great astonishment she stopped short with such a flame of blushes as I had never seen on her face before, and I was at a loss to know what she might mean, but supposed that she considered that the shame of Mistress Mary's wearing finery which had been paid for out of a convict's purse would be more than she could put upon her, and yet that she dared not inform her, lest she refuse to wear the sky-blue robe to the governor's ball, and so anger Madam Cavendish. "Madam," I said, "your sister is but blessing you for what you would have done, and wherefore need you fret?" "God knows I would," she broke out, passionately. "Every jewel I possess, the very gown from my back, would I have sold to save her this, had I but known. Why did she not tell me, why did not she tell me? Oh, Harry, I pray you to take these jewels."