‘Miss Emmeline,’ she began, with evident hesitation, ‘there’s something I think it right to warn you about.’
‘What is it?’ asked Emmeline nervously. She felt a sudden dread that the warning might have something to do with Diamond Jubilee.
‘Well, it’s about Alice,’ said Jane. (Emmeline breathed freely again.) ‘I hardly like to speak of it, but I feel it’s my duty. You know Tuesday’s the day she always turns out your room. Well, when I went in there to put Miss Kitty to bed, I noticed the box which you keep the money in for the Poor Children’s Home had fallen off your chest of drawers and was lying on the floor. Well, I picked it up’—she paused, and went on impressively—‘and I found it was quite empty!’
‘Was it?’ said Emmeline, uneasily. ‘But I don’t see what Alice has to do with it.’
‘And you wouldn’t see,’ said Jane, in the tone habitual to grieved charity, ‘not unless you knew Alice’s history. She was turned away from her first place for taking some money that had been left loose in a drawer, and Miss Bolton only took her to give her a chance of making a fresh start. She’s been here six weeks now, and nothing’s been missed, so we did hope she was going to do better, but I’m afraid now she is falling back into her old ways, and that we shall have to part with her. But don’t you say anything about this to anybody, please, Miss Emmeline. I only told you as a warning to be careful what you leave about, and because I knew you’d wonder about the box being empty.’
Never in her life had Emmeline felt so miserably uncomfortable. She was a naturally honourable child, and at the bottom of her heart she knew that she ought to confess to having taken the money herself, and not let Alice rest under unjust suspicion a moment longer. But then Jane would ask horrid prying questions and everything would come out. After all, she told herself, she was really not bound to confide in Jane; it was no business of Jane’s what she did with her money.
‘I don’t think it’s at all charitable of you to make out that poor Alice is a thief, when you can’t possibly know anything about it!’ she exclaimed hotly—she did feel very angry with Jane for having put her into such a horrid position—‘and, anyhow, you can’t send her away, only Aunt Grace can do that, and I’m sure she won’t without a much better reason for thinking Alice took the money.’