A maid-servant came into the room.

“Liza, you don’t know why they have been rummaging in my room?” the governess asked her.

“Mistress has lost a brooch worth two thousand,” said Liza.

“Yes, but why have they been rummaging in my room?”

“They’ve been searching every one, miss.  They’ve searched all my things, too.  They stripped us all naked and searched us. . . .  God knows, miss, I never went near her toilet-table, let alone touching the brooch.  I shall say the same at the police-station.”

“But . . . why have they been rummaging here?” the governess still wondered.

“A brooch has been stolen, I tell you.  The mistress has been rummaging in everything with her own hands.  She even searched Mihailo, the porter, herself.  It’s a perfect disgrace!  Nikolay Sergeitch simply looks on and cackles like a hen.  But you’ve no need to tremble like that, miss.  They found nothing here.  You’ve nothing to be afraid of if you didn’t take the brooch.”

“But, Liza, it’s vile . . . it’s insulting,” said Mashenka, breathless with indignation.  “It’s so mean, so low!  What right had she to suspect me and to rummage in my things?”

“You are living with strangers, miss,” sighed Liza.  “Though you are a young lady, still you are . . . as it were . . . a servant. . . .  It’s not like living with your papa and mamma.”

Mashenka threw herself on the bed and sobbed bitterly.  Never in her life had she been subjected to such an outrage, never had she been so deeply insulted. . . .  She, well-educated, refined, the daughter of a teacher, was suspected of theft; she had been searched like a street-walker!  She could not imagine a greater insult.  And to this feeling of resentment was added an oppressive dread of what would come next.  All sorts of absurd ideas came into her mind.  If they could suspect her of theft, then they might arrest her, strip her naked, and search her, then lead her through the street with an escort of soldiers, cast her into a cold, dark cell with mice and woodlice, exactly like the dungeon in which Princess Tarakanov was imprisoned.  Who would stand up for her?  Her parents lived far away in the provinces; they had not the money to come to her.  In the capital she was as solitary as in a desert, without friends or kindred.  They could do what they liked with her.

“I will go to all the courts and all the lawyers,” Mashenka thought, trembling.  “I will explain to them, I will take an oath. . . .  They will believe that I could not be a thief!”

Mashenka remembered that under the sheets in her basket she had some sweetmeats, which, following the habits of her schooldays, she had put in her pocket at dinner and carried off to her room.  She felt hot all over, and was ashamed at the thought that her little secret was known to the lady of the house; and all this terror, shame, resentment, brought on an attack of palpitation of the heart, which set up a throbbing in her temples, in her heart, and deep down in her stomach.