"You need not fly out: I never accused her."
"But I did: do not wonder that I defend her all the more warmly."
"But I do wonder," pursued Kate, with a keen look at me; "there is something in it; the sly little thing got round you whilst you were alone together. Oh, Cornelius, Cornelius! that child has made her way to your very heart. You would rather be deceived than think she did wrong."
"I am not deceived," he indignantly replied.
Kate did not answer, but kept looking at me in a way that made me feel very uncomfortable.
"Daisy is guiltless," continued her brother; "how I ever thought her otherwise is a mystery to me. Who has ever been more devoted to my painting than the poor child?"
Kate opened her lips, then closed them again without speaking. Cornelius detected this.
"Well," he said quickly, "what have you got to say, Kate?"
"Nothing!" she drily answered, with another look at me so searching and so keen that I involuntarily clung closer to Cornelius.
"Kate," he said again, looking from me to her, "what have you to say?"