This game ended, Sarah’s black eyes moved about for a fresh diversion; her gaze rested upon Mary, and Mary whispered that she would like to go home.

“Yes.  You can,” said Sarah, staring at her, “if you will do something when you get there.”

“What?” said Mary, her heart beating like a heavy and jumping hammer.

“There’s something I want.  You’ve got to bring it me.”

Mary said nothing, only her wide eyes filled with tears.

“There’s something in your mother’s drawing-room.  You know in that little table with the glass top where there are the little gold boxes with the silver crosses and things.  There’s a ring there—­a gold one with a red stone—­very pretty.  I want it.”

Mary drew a long, deep breath.  Her fat legs in the tight, black stockings were shaking.

“You can go in when no one sees.  The table isn’t locked, I know, because I opened it once.  You can get and bring it to me to-morrow in the garden.”

“Oh,” Mary whispered, “that would be stealing.”

“Of course it wouldn’t.  Nobody wants the old ring.  No one ever looks at it.  It’s just for fun.”

“No,” said Mary, “I mustn’t.”

“Oh, yes, you must.  You’ll be very sorry if you don’t.  Dreadful things will happen.  Alice——­”

Mary cried softly, choking and spluttering and rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand.

“Well, you’d better go now.  I’ll be in the garden with Hortense to-morrow.  You know, the same place.  You’d better have it, that’s all.  And don’t go on crying, or your mother will think I made you.  What’s there to cry about?  No one will eat you.”

“It’s stealing.”

“I dare say it belongs to you, and, anyway, it will when your mother dies, so what does it matter?  You are a baby!”

After Mary’s departure Sarah sat for a long while alone in her nursery.  She thought to herself:  “Mary will be going home now and she’ll be snuffling to herself all the way back, and she won’t tell the nurse anything, I know that.  Now she’s in the hall.  She’s upstairs now, having her things taken off.  She’s stopped crying, but her eyes and nose are red.  She looks very ugly.  She’s gone to find Alice.  She thinks something has happened to her.  She begins to cry again when she sees her, and she begins to talk to her about it.  Fancy talking to a cat....”

The room was swallowed in darkness, and when Hortense came in and found Sarah sitting alone there, she thought to herself that, in spite of the profits that she secured from her mistress she would find another situation.  She did not speak to Sarah, and Sarah did not speak to her.

Once, during the night, Sarah woke up; she sat up in bed and stared into the darkness.  Then she smiled to herself.  As she lay down again she thought: 

“Now I know that she will bring it.”

The next day was very fine, and in the glittering garden by the fountain, Sarah sat with Hortense, and waited.  Soon Mary and her nurse appeared.  Sarah took Mary by the hand and they went away down the leaf-strewn path.