She studied his face. Again her conviction was shaken, and she trembled in spite of herself. But she saw no other way. “I can’t believe you,” she said sadly.
He made no answer, but a change came over his face. His patience had gone. His anger was kindling. It began to frighten her. She summoned her will and made an effort to hold her ground. “Will you swear,” she said—“will you swear you didn’t open the locket?”
Still he made no reply.
“Nor shut it?” she went on. She was pleading now.
“Sally,” he said in a strange voice, “I neither opened nor closed nor saw a locket. What has a locket to do with this?”
She looked at him blankly in terror, for suddenly she knew that he was speaking the truth. “Then what has happened?” she murmured.
“You must tell that,” he said.
“I only know this,” she began: “I wore a locket the day of the accident. There was a pressed flower in it.” The color began to rise in her cheeks again. “When I came to, the flower was gone, so I knew the locket had been opened.”
For a moment he was speechless. “And you treat me as you have,” he cried, “on the suspicion of my opening this locket!”