"You ought not to abuse the money; it was not wicked. You ought to wish
that you had returned it. But that is no use; the thing is to return it
now. Has your husband got a sovereign?"

"No. He may ha' got one since I be laid up. But I never can tell him about
it; and I should be main sorry to spend one of his hard earning in that
way, poor man."

"Well, I'll tell him, and we'll manage it somehow."

I thought for a few moments she would break out in opposition; but she hid
her face with the sheet instead, and burst into a great weeping.

I took this as a permission to do as I had said, and went to the room-door
and called her husband. He came, looking scared. His wife did not look up,
but lay weeping. I hoped much for her and him too from this humiliation
before him, for I had little doubt she needed it.

"Your wife, poor woman," I said, "is in great distress because--I do not
know when or how--she picked up a sovereign that did not belong to her,
and, instead of returning, put it away somewhere and lost it. This is what
is making her so miserable."

"Deary me!" said Stokes, in the tone with which he would have spoken to a
sick child; and going up to his wife, he sought to draw down the sheet from
her face, apparently that he might kiss her; but she kept tight hold of
it, and he could not. "Deary me!" he went on; "we'll soon put that all to
rights. When was it, Jane, that you found it?"