“This man, this gentleman, says you’re a thief, my girl! Says you went into his room last night and stole his watch and his money and that he caught your hand in the very act. There, my girl, answer him yourself. Tell him what you think of a cur that tells such lies as them of my bonny Nell!”
The man was genuinely agitated, indeed almost sobbing with rage and disgust. As for Clifford, he was inarticulate; he could only look at the girl, as she grew deadly white, and seemed to lose the bloom of her beauty in horror and amazement as she listened.
CHAPTER IV.
In spite of his own indignation and remorse on hearing Claris make this coarse and cruel speech, Clifford watched the girl narrowly, and was shocked and surprised to observe that while he and her uncle were at a white heat of excitement, she showed remarkable self-control. After a moment’s silence on her part, she interrupted Clifford’s protests and excuses with a little pettish movement of her hand.
“Never mind apologizing,” said she, curtly. “Let us hear what you have to say. Now I know what you meant by your being ‘disturbed.’”
She cast down her glance upon the shabby carpet of the little sitting-room, and stood, leaning with one hand upon the table, her head half turned away, in the attitude of close attention.
It was evident that she did not suffer half so keenly as did Clifford, whose voice was hoarse and tremulous as he spoke in answer.
“You don’t suppose, you can’t suppose, that I accuse you of anything,” said he, trying in vain to meet her eyes, and betraying even to the prejudiced eyes of George Claris the genuineness of his feeling. “I was disturbed in the night. I found a hand under my pillow. I caught the hand with my purse and my watch in it. The hand was a woman’s, small and soft and slender. There, that’s all I know.”
“But you think it’s enough to go upon when you accuse my niece of being a thief!” shouted George Claris, as he brought his heavy fist down with a sounding thump upon the table.
“Hush, uncle!” said the girl, with perfect calmness. “Mr. King never meant that. I am sure of it.”