Well! What had she done? She had stolen nothing. She had taken
no person's property. She had, indeed, been wickedly robbed, and the
police had done nothing to get back for her her property, as they were
bound to have done. She would take care to tell the major what she thought
about the negligence of the police. The major should not have the talk all
to himself.
If it had not been for one word with which Lord George had stunned her
ears, she could still have borne it well. She had told a lie; perhaps two
or three lies. She knew that she had lied. But then people lie every day.
She would not have minded it much if she were simply to be called a liar.
But he had told her that she would be accused of perjury. There was
something frightful to her in the name. And there were she knew not what
dreadful penalties attached to it. Lord George had told her that she might
be put in prison--whether he had said for years or for months she had
forgotten. And she thought she had heard of people's property being
confiscated to the Crown when they had been made out to be guilty of
certain great offences. Oh, how she wished that she had a rock!
When three o'clock came she had not started for Scotland or elsewhere, and
at last she received the major.
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