"Stop, stop. I'll tell you all about it. I lost it again. That's the worst
of it. I got no good of it."

"What was it?"

"A sovereign," she said, with a groan. "And now I'm a thief, I suppose."

"No more a thief than you were before. Rather less, I hope. But do you
think it would have been any better for you if you hadn't lost it, and had
got some good of it, as you say?"

She was silent yet again.

"If you hadn't lost it you would most likely have been a great deal worse
for it than you are--a more wicked woman altogether."

"I'm not a wicked woman."

"It is wicked to steal, is it not?"

"I didn't steal it."

"How did you come by it, then?"

"I found it."

"Did you try to find out the owner?"

"No. I knew whose it was."