"How would you give it back? Would you get your husband to take it?" "No; I wouldn't trust him." "With the story, you mean I You do not wish to imply that he would not restore it?" "I don't mean that. He would do what I told him." "How would you return it, then?" "I should make a parcel of it, and send it." "Without saying anything about it?" "Yes. Where's the good? The man would have his own." "No, he would not. He has a right to your confession, for you have wronged him. That would never do." "You are too hard upon me," she said, beginning to weep angrily. "Do you want to get the weight of this sin off your mind?" I said. "Of course I do. I am going to die. O dear! O dear!" "Then that is just what I want to help you in. You must confess, or the weight of it will stick there." "But, if I confess, I shall be expected to pay it back?" "Of course. That is only reasonable." "But I haven't got it, I tell you. I have lost it." "Have you not a sovereign in your possession?" "No, not one." "Can't you ask your husband to let you have one?" "There! I knew it was no use. I knew you would only make matters worse. I do wish I had never seen that wicked money." "You ought not to abuse the money; it was not wicked. You ought to wish that you had returned it. But that is no use; the thing is to return it now. Has your husband got a sovereign?" "No. He may ha' got one since I be laid up. But I never can tell him about it; and I should be main sorry to spend one of his hard earning in that way, poor man." "Well, I'll tell him, and we'll manage it somehow." I thought for a few moments she would break out in opposition; but she hid her face with the sheet instead, and burst into a great weeping. I took this as a permission to do as I had said, and went to the room-door and called her husband. He came, looking scared. His wife did not look up, but lay weeping. I hoped much for her and him too from this humiliation before him, for I had little doubt she needed it. "Your wife, poor woman," I said, "is in great distress because--I do not know when or how--she picked up a sovereign that did not belong to her, and, instead of returning, put it away somewhere and lost it. This is what is making her so miserable." "Deary me!" said Stokes, in the tone with which he would have spoken to a sick child; and going up to his wife, he sought to draw down the sheet from her face, apparently that he might kiss her; but she kept tight hold of it, and he could not. "Deary me!" he went on; "we'll soon put that all to rights. When was it, Jane, that you found it?" "When we wanted so to have a pig of our own; and I thought I could soon return it," she sobbed from under the sheet. "Deary me! Ten years ago! Where did you find it, old woman?"