She glanced indifferently at the sheet—shaking in Lynden's hands so that it rattled—to start next instant and utter a little gasp.
"Tell me," Lynden insisted with furious vehemence, "what does this mean? Who has betrayed you?"
She quickly recovered herself.
"I can't imagine," she replied coolly, "unless some spy has done so." There was an inflexion of indignant contempt upon the word, glaring to every one but Lynden.
"Spy? Spy?" he repeated blankly. "I don't understand." But of a sudden he did, and in turn recoiled from Joyce. For the first time he became aware of the presence of others besides himself and the girl, and he shot over the assembled group a glance at once accusing, fearful, suspicious, and revealing a sense of shame and embarrassment too deep for the insinuation alone to account for its existence. Shame-facedly and abashed, he looked from Converse to McCaleb, and muttered an unintelligible apology to Mrs. Westbrook.
But Joyce, who had not removed her steady gaze from him, followed his glance, and in tones that must have penetrated him like knife-thrusts, said:
"Pray, Howard Lynden, do not attempt to place a misconstruction upon my words. When I said 'spy,' I did not refer to either of these gentlemen. Although they are officers of the law and I seem to be in a miserably compromising position, they have not dogged my every movement; they have not stood off at a distance and looked suspicion at me every time I met their eyes; they have not made my condition more wretched by all sorts of innuendoes and vile insinuations, and yet—and yet—" for a moment she was almost in tears; her throat filled, and she had to pause; but the weakness was conquered almost at once, and she continued, with flashing eyes, her voice quivering with indignation,—"yet, Howard Lynden, you—you have pretended to be my friend. As for that"—she advanced a step toward him, and pointing an accusing finger at the paper in his hand, concentrated all her feelings in her next words. So scathing were they that Lynden winced visibly at each syllable, as if it had been the lash of a whip,—-"as for that, I think of it as I do of you—you spy; you sneak! Go, go! never let my eyes rest upon you again!"
Completely discomfited—overwhelmed by the sting of her words,—he offered not the shadow of a defence. Abruptly, the girl's mood changed. It was like the snapping of a string drawn too taut. One convulsive sob escaped her, she seemed of a sudden to droop, and the next instant Mrs. Westbrook, moving noiselessly, was at her side. Calmly and without a word she passed an arm about her daughter's waist and drew the girl close to her side.
"Mamma, mamma," Joyce faltered, her voice breaking as though she had reached the limit of endurance, "don't read it! Don't look at it! Oh!—Oh!—help me!" Shuddering she hid her face upon her mother's shoulder, her slender form quivering with sobs that could not be restrained.
With features sternly set, Converse advanced and snatched the paper from Lynden's passive fingers. It required no search to find the one important item that it contained. In letters which any who ran might read, appeared the following headlines: