"Then—oh, Horace, it was you! It's no use denying it. I feel more certain of it every moment!"
"Now, Sylvia!" he protested, still anxious, if possible, to keep the worst from her, "what could have put such an idea as that into your head?"
"I don't know," she said slowly. "Several things last night. No one who was really nice, and like everybody else, would live in such queer rooms like those, and dine on cushions, with dreadful black slaves, and—and dancing-girls and things. You pretended you were quite poor."
"So I am, darling. And as for my rooms, and—and the rest, they're all gone, Sylvia. If you went to Vincent Square to-day, you wouldn't find a trace of them!"
"That only shows!" said Sylvia. "But why should you play such a cruel, and—and ungentlemanly trick on poor dad? If you had ever really loved me——!"
"But I do, Sylvia, you can't really believe me capable of such an outrage! Look at me and tell me so."
"No, Horace," said Sylvia frankly. "I don't believe you did it. But I believe you know who did. And you had better tell me at once!"
"If you're quite sure you can stand it," he replied, "I'll tell you everything." And, as briefly as possible, he told her how he had unsealed the brass bottle, and all that had come of it.
She bore it, on the whole, better than he had expected; perhaps, being a woman, it was some consolation to her to remind him that she had foretold something of this kind from the very first.
"But, of course, I never really thought it would be so awful as this!" she said. "Horace, how could you be so careless as to let a great wicked thing like that escape out of its bottle?"