“I have only this to say for myself. It isn't much, but Mr. Teesdale will tell you that it's the truth. It's only that I did do my level best to make a clean breast to him last night.” “She did!” exclaimed the old man, after a moment's rapid consideration. “Now I see what she meant. To think that I never saw then!” “You were very dense,” said Missy; “but not worse than John William. I did my best to tell you last night, and I did my best to tell him only this morning, but neither of you would understand.” As she spoke to the old man her voice was strangely gentle, and a smile was hovering about the corners of her mouth when she ceased. Moreover, her words had brought out a faint ray of light upon Mr. Teesdale's dejected mien. “It's a fact!” he cried, turning to the others. “She did her best to confess last night. She did confess. I remember all about it now. It was a full confession, if only I'd put two and two together. But—well, I never could have believed it of her. That was it!” He finished on a sufficiently reproachful note. Nevertheless, Mrs. Teesdale turned upon him as fiercely as though he had spoken from a brief in Missy's defence. “What if she had confessed? I'm ashamed of you, David, going on as though that could ha' made any difference! She'd still have deceived us and lied to us all these weeks. Black is black and this—this woman—is that black that God Himself couldn't whiten her!” And Mrs. Teesdale shook her fist at the guilty girl. “We have none of us a right to say that,” murmured David. “But I do say it, and I mean it, too. I say that she'd still have stolen Miriam's letter of introduction, and come here deliberately and passed herself off as Miriam, and slept under our roof, and eaten-our bread, under false pretences—false pretences as shall put her in prison if I have anything to do with it! No confession could have undone all that; and no confession shall keep her out of prison neither, not if I know it!” Some of them were expecting Missy to take to her heels any moment; but she never showed the least sign of doing so. “No, nothing can undo it,” she said herself. “I've known that for some time, and I shan't be sorry to pay the cost.” Then the real Miss Oliver put in her word. It was winged with a sneer. “It was hardly a compliment,” she said, “to take her for me! You might ask her, by the way, when and where she stole my letters. I lost several.” She could not permit herself to address the culprit direct. “I'll tell you that,” said Missy, “and everything else too, if you like to listen.” “Do, Missy!” cried Arabella, speaking also for the first time. “And then I'll tell them something.” “Be sharp, then,” said Mrs. Teesdale. “We're not going to stand here much longer listening to the likes of you. If you've got much to say, you'd better keep it for the magistrate!”