"Yes," said Alicia weakly.
Annie bounded forward and grasped her companion's arm. Her face flushed, almost unable to speak from suppressed emotion, she cried:
"Ah! I begin to understand. You knew Robert Underwood? Howard knows your voice—he heard you—talking to him——Oh, Mrs. Jeffries! Are you the woman who visited his apartment that night?"
The banker's wife bowed her head and collapsed on a chair.
"Yes," she murmured in a low tone.
Annie looked at her in amazement.
"Why didn't you come forward at once?" she cried. "Think of the pain which you might have spared us!"
Alicia covered her face with her handkerchief. She was crying now.
"The disgrace—the disgrace!" she moaned.
"Disgrace!" echoed Annie, stupefied. Indignantly, she went on: "Disgrace—to you? But what of me and Howard?"