Maria followed him into the room. It would have been difficult to say
whether triumphant malice and daring, or fear, prevailed in her heart.

Harry, carrying the lamp, entered the room, with Maria slinking at
his heels. The first thing he saw was the torn paper.

"Hullo!" said he. He approached the bay-window with his lamp.
"Confound those paperers!" he said.

For a minute Maria did not say a word. She was not exactly struggling
with temptation; she had inherited too much from her mother's Puritan
ancestry to make the question of a struggle possible when the duty of
truth stared her, as now, in the face. She simply did not speak at
once because the thing appeared to her stupendous, and nobody, least
of all a child, but has a threshold of preparation before stupendous
things.

"They haven't half put the paper on," said her father. "Didn't half
paste it, I suppose. You can't trust anybody unless you are right at
their heels. Confound 'em! There, I've got to go round and blow 'em
up to-morrow, before I go to the city."

Then Maria spoke. "I tore that paper off, father," said she.

Harry turned and stared at her. His face went white. For a second he
thought the child was out of her senses.

"What?" he said.