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Rh them an inflexible intent; she glanced at Daintree, and her great temptation was to tell everything before them all, and so secure her future from she knew not what, but something worse than she had ever foreseen. Now was the moment—here the chance—there would never be such another. The best course—the bold course—sang in her ears as a whisper from her guardian angel’s lips. It was not shrinking from the immediate scene, but rather the dread of righteous wrath to come and be her curse for ever, that decided Claire and made her say, with but a second’s pause, “It is perfectly true! I did give the things to Hannah, and they are hers.”

“You gave your maid your diamond pendant?”

“If you come into the library, papa, I will tell you all about it.”

They were but a minute closeted; then the constable was dismissed with something for himself, the hackney-coachman called in again to take the woman’s box, and the other servants sent about their business through the green-baize door. Claire watched her spy’s departure with as much curiosity as relief. Unwonted colour tinged those pallid cheeks, and some unfathomable meaning softened the jet-black eyes as they gazed into hers for the last time. There was not only gratitude in the look, but (as it seemed to Claire) both the will and the power to show it, given the chance. As it was, she was edging near to speak, when Mr. Harding came between them, and himself hustled the woman out of the house. He then sought out Daintree and took him by the arm.

“This will show you the kind of girl Claire is,” said Nicholas Harding. “Of course, she had never given the woman a thing; but rather than have her put in prison—you see? Isn’t it incredible?”