“Did she tell you—” Miss Lansdowne hesitated—“that Miss Claris fainted when they told her what had happened to her uncle, and that they found under her pillow—a canvas bag containing the money collected for some shipwrecked sailors the night before?”
Clifford’s face changed.
“No,” said he at once, in the tone of a man who has made up his mind on some weighty point, “they did not tell me that.”
“It is true, though. After that, who could doubt the girl’s guilt?”
“I could,” said Clifford, quietly.
“And one other person—Miss Bostal. And you are both equally unreasonable.”
“Miss Bostal takes her part? I didn’t think the dried-up little creature had it in her!” said Clifford, with admiration. “I shall go and see her.”
“That is just what she wants you to do,” replied Miss Lansdowne. “She has said so to me so often that I thought, when I saw I had a chance of speaking to you, I would not let it slip.”
“It is very good of you,” said Clifford. “Which was the dance you said I might have?”
The next morning, before luncheon-time, he was at Stroan.