At that moment she hardly
knew, had hardly thought, whether the diamonds had or had not been taken.
But the feeling came upon her at once that her own disgrace was every hour
being brought nearer to her. Her secret was no longer quite her own. One
man knew it, and he had talked to her of perjury and of five years'
imprisonment. Patience must have known it too; and now some one else also
knew it. The police, of course, would find it out, and then horrid words
would be used against her. She hardly knew what perjury was. It sounded
like forgery and burglary. To stand up before a judge and be tried, and
then to be locked up for five years in prison! What an end would this be
to all her glorious success! And what evil had she done to merit all this
terrible punishment? When they came to her in her bedroom at Carlisle she
had simply been too much frightened to tell them all that the necklace was
at that moment under her pillow.
She tried to think of it all, and to form some idea in her mind of what
might be the truth. Of course Patience Crabstick had known her secret, but
how long had the girl known it? And how had the girl discovered it? She
was almost sure, from certain circumstances, from words which the girl had
spoken, and from signs which she had observed, that Patience had not even
suspected that the necklace had been brought with them from Carlisle to
London.
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