“You are a woman of wiles. That could be managed by one bent on an elaborate scheme of revenge.”
“And so could the abstraction of Mrs. Barnum’s five-hundred-dollar handkerchief by one who sat in the next box,” chimed in Miss Hughson, edging away from the friend to whose honour she would have pinned her faith an hour before. “I remember now seeing her lean over the railing to adjust the old lady’s shawl.”
With a start, Caroline West turned a tragic gaze upon the speaker.
“You think me guilty of all because of what I did last night?”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
“And you, Anna?”
“Alicia has my sympathy,” murmured Miss Benedict.
Yet the wild girl persisted.
“But I have told you my provocation. You cannot believe that I am guilty of her sin; not if you look at her as I am looking now.”
But their glances hardly followed her pointing finger. Her friends—the comrades of her youth, the Inseparables with their secret oath—one and all held themselves aloof, struck by the perfidy they were only just beginning to take in. Smitten with despair, for these girls were her life, she gave one wild leap and sank on her knees before Alicia.