. 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.

"Dinner is ready," the servant summoned Mashenka.

"Shall I go, or not?"

Mashenka brushed her hair, wiped her face with a wet towel, and
went into the dining-room. There they had already begun dinner. At
one end of the table sat Fedosya Vassilyevna with a stupid, solemn,
serious face; at the other end Nikolay Sergeitch. At the sides there
were the visitors an