“Oh, Mrs. Faulks, I am so sorry,” Alice Beach said. “It was too bad. And it’s really all my fault.”
“I—I—you say you stole my rubies?” Mrs. Faulks turned upon Sally.
“Come, come, the child took them for a joke,” Colonel Beach protested.
“I took them, yes—and then I lost them. I’m most awfully sorry about that.”
“Are you indeed. Am I to believe this tale, Colonel Beach? Then pray who stole my diamond necklace?”
She produced an awful silence. She seemed proud of it, and in a fascination of horror the conspirators stared at her.
“Diamond necklace!” Sally cried. “I never saw it.”
“My necklace is gone. I don’t profess to understand the ideas of joking in this house. But my necklace is gone.”
“Oh, my lord,” said Cosdon. “That’s torn it.”
“The snowball!” Alice gasped. “It is a snowball. Everything gets in something else.”