There was silence; the girl looked sullen; her eyes seemed sunken almost, so deep were the shadows round them.
"Why?" demanded Adrian again. "What was your object? If you wanted to borrow our dinghy why didn't you come and ask for it--not that we should have let you have it this weather," he added sotto voce, in an Adrian-like aside.
"Don't ask any more till she's had something to eat and drink," said Crow. "Here, take off your coat; you're awfully wet."
She pulled the coat off with a firm hand. There, fastening the silk blouse in front, was the diamond safety-pin. The light made it glitter with a hundred tiny rays.
"Addie!" exclaimed Crow.
"Well, it is my own," said the girl.
"Just so. We are beginning to see light--at least I am," retorted Adrian stiffly. "You've been posing as my sister Pamela, haven't you? Was it you who went to Miss Ashington and asked for that brooch?"
"It is mine!" flamed the girl. "Cannot I have my own?"
Adrian shrugged his shoulders.
"You don't seem to see that there are two ways of getting one's own," he said, "a decent way--and, well--a rotten one. Did you by any chance happen to let out Badger's sheep and his horses, and come along to the cliff above Champles cove the other day?"