Jeff stood gazing at her in a compassion that brought a smart to his eyes. This, a sad certainty told him, was love, the love that is unthinking. She was suffocated by the pure desire to give the earth to him and herself with it. What disaster might come from it to her or to the earth, her lulled brain did not consider. The self-immolation of passion had benumbed her. And now she looked at him beseechingly, as if to beg him only not to scorn her gift. Her emotion transferred itself to him. He must be the one to act; but disappointingly, he knew, with the mind coming in to school disastrous feeling and warn it not again to scale such heights or drop into such depths. "Lydia," said he, "you must leave this thing here with me." His hand indicated by a motion the hateful bauble that lay there glittering at them. "Why, yes," said she. "I've left it with you." "I mean you must leave it altogether, the decision what to do with it, even the fact of your having had anything whatever to do with it yourself." Lydia nodded, watching him. It had not occurred to her that there need be any concealment. She had meant to indicate that to herself when she walked so boldly down the front stairs and clanged the door and went along the street with the parcel plainly in her hand. If there was a slight drop in her expectation now, she did not show it. What she had indeed believed was that Jeff would greet the necklace with an incredulous joy and flaunt it in the face of Esther who had stolen it, while he gave it back to Madame Beattie, who had preyed on him. "Do you understand?" said he. "You mustn't speak of it." "I shall have to tell," said Lydia, "if anybody asks me. If I didn't it would be--queer." "It's a great deal more than queer," said Jeff. He smiled now, and she drew a happy breath. And he was amused, in a grim way. He had been, for a long time, calling himself plain thief, and taking no credit because his theft was what might have seemed a crime of passion of a sort. He had put himself "outside ", and now this child had committed a crime of passion and she was outside, too. Her ignorant daring frightened him. At any instant she might declare her guilt. She needed to be brought face to face, for her own safety, with the names of things. "Lydia," said he, "you know what it would be called--this taking something out of another woman's bag?" "No," said Lydia. "Theft," said he. He meant to have no mercy on her until he had roused her dormant caution. "If you take what is not yours you are a thief." "But," said Lydia, "I took it from Esther and it wasn't hers, either." She was unshaken in her candour, but he noted the trembling of her lip and he could go no further. "Leave it with me," he said. "And promise me one thing. Don't speak to anybody about it." "Unless they ask me," said Lydia. "Not even if they ask you. Go to your room and shut yourself in. And don't talk to anybody till I see you again."