Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/182

 "If you're summoned as a witness a fortnight from now, you will have to go, you know," Gaylor assured her, slyly. The police have power to subpœna you, and force you to obey if you refuse."

"You can drive a horse to water, but you can't make him drink," said Miss Maunsell, with a kind of dreary nonchalance.

"You wouldn't like to go to prison—a respectable Christian woman like you?"

"A good many respectable Christians have been in prison." And the housekeeper cited several famous scriptural examples.

That s true. But if you went there it would lose you your present place, nor would it help you to get another. And I'm here to save you trouble. That's where your 'advantage' comes in. If you answer freely and truthfully all my questions, the chances are I may get you off from being called. Besides, your conscience can't counsel you to obstruct justice. You believe in the Old Testament, I'm sure: 'An eye for an eye; a tooth for a tooth.'"

"I'll hear your questions, and if I think right, I'll answer them," replied the woman, after a moment's reflection. "If I don't think right, I'll go to prison for twenty years rather than speak. So there you have my mind."

Gaylor believed that not only did she mean what she said, but would stick to it "through thick and thin,"