Excerpt: ...What did you want with the key?" "I-I don't know." The lie failed, if they were lies; but perhaps they might have been partly true; the child hung her head and began to whimper. She was not quite hardened, then. "Come here to me," said Christian, sadly and gravely, leading her to the glass door, so that what light there was could shine upon her face; "let me look if you have been telling me the truth. Don't be afraid; if you have I will not punish you. I will not be hard upon you in any case, if you will only ...
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Excerpt: ...What did you want with the key?" "I-I don't know." The lie failed, if they were lies; but perhaps they might have been partly true; the child hung her head and began to whimper. She was not quite hardened, then. "Come here to me," said Christian, sadly and gravely, leading her to the glass door, so that what light there was could shine upon her face; "let me look if you have been telling me the truth. Don't be afraid; if you have I will not punish you. I will not be hard upon you in any case, if you will only speak the truth. Titia, a little girl like you has no business to be creeping in and out of her papa's house like a thief. Tell at once where have you been, and who was with you?" The child burst out crying. "I daren't tell, or Phillis will beat me. She said she would if I stirred an inch from the nursery, while she went down to have tea with cook and Barker. And I thought I might just run for ten minutes to see Miss Bennett, who wanted me so." "You were with Miss Bennett, then? Any body else?" "Only a gentleman," said Letitia, hanging her head and blushing with that painful precocity of consciousness so sad to see in a little girl. "What was his name?" "I don't know. Miss Bennett didn't tell me. She only said he was a friend of hers, who liked little girls, and that if I could come and have a walk with them, without telling Phillis or any body, she would let me off all the hardest of my French lessons. And so-and so-Oh, hide me, there's papa at the hall door, and Aunt Henrietta coming out of the dining- room. And Aunt Henrietta never believes what I say, even if I tell her the truth. Oh, let me run-let me run." The child's terror was so uncontrollable that there was nothing for it but to yield; and she fled. "Titia! Titia!" called out her father. "Christian, what is the matter? What was my little girl crying for?" There was no avoiding the domestic catastrophe, even had Christian wished to avoid it, which she did not. She felt it was a...
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