Whimple’s very lips went ghastly. He tried to answer, and broke down at the first syllable.
“I don’t accuse you of putting it there. Now, tell me—why didn’t you get rid of it as you undertook to do?”
He made out the man to say that he had—that he had removed it to his own room, intending later to find some means of disposing of it.
In the midst of his stammering explanations, Darda came softly into the hall. Her brother seized her arm with a shaking hand.
“How could you?” he muttered. “How could you do a thing so stupid and wicked?—and you have ruined us.”
She followed the direction of his wild eyes, and her own opened round in wonder.
“I didn’t put it there,” she said. “Does he say I did? It is a lie.”
He whispered “Hush!” in a fearful voice; but his master broke in at once.
“No matter who did it. One of you has thought fit to make a mock of me, and you must both pay the penalty.”
The girl laughed scornfully.