What better advice could he give?
And what line of action would be better or safer for himself?
If James had known who was in the house-passage, the other side of the door, there would, I think, have been a collision of two solid bodies.
But he did not know, and presently Lala Roy came back, and the torture began again.

James took down books and put them up again; he moved about feverishly, doing nothing, with a duster in his hand; but all the time he felt those deep accusing eyes upon him with a silence worse than a thousand questions.

He knew--he was perfectly certain--that he should be found out.

And all the trouble for nothing! and the Bailiff's man in possession, and the safe robbed, and those eyes upon him, saying, as plain as eyes could speak, "Thou art the Man!" "And Joe is the man," said James; "not me at all.

What I did was wrong, but I was tempted.