"But surely," the practical Miss Doubleday here intervened, "surely, if Miss Moore were guilty of stealing the pendant, she would not wear it here, under your very eyes, Sir Arthur. It is not likely——"
"I understood Miss Moore to say she was ignorant of the meaning of the initials above the pendant," the old gentleman answered coldly; "presumably, therefore, she is not aware that C stands for Congreve. There is no reason to suppose that she knew from whose bag she was taking the pendant, when she took it."
"But I did not take it," Christina cried; "indeed, indeed, I did not. It is my own, my very own; all I have told you is true." Sir Arthur ignored her words, turning gravely to his cousin.
"My dear Cicely, I am very sorry to be unintentionally the cause of so much unpleasantness for you, but I am afraid that, in the interests of justice, I shall be obliged to make this the subject of police investigation."
CHAPTER XVII.
"WHO DO YOU MEAN BY SIR ARTHUR?"
Boxing Day had dawned bright and sunny, but before the afternoon, rain began to fall, and a rising wind was sweeping over the moor, when, between three and four o'clock, Denis Fergusson drove along the upland road. A case of pneumonia in a desolate hamlet had suddenly taken a grave turn, and as he sped across the open stretch of country, his thoughts were concentrated on his patient, and on the gravity of her condition. Having threshed out in his mind all the possibilities with regard to this anxious charge, he allowed his thoughts to drift back to his afternoon at Bramwell Castle two days before, to Baba's winsome ways, to the sweetness of Baba's mother, to his own dream idyll, the dreaming of which had, he was convinced, been such an absurdity, and yet—and yet, the dream had seemed so wonderful.
"People may scoff at the bare idea of love at first sight," he mused, as the car passed on its rapid way in the gathering twilight, "but—sometimes it happens—even to the most prosaic of us." And out of the grey mists that crept over the brown expanse of heather and bracken, he seemed to see Cicely's face, smiling that fascinating smile of hers, which was so childlike, so appealing, so sweet.
"And her eyes are like the speedwell in the June hedges," his thoughts ran on; "such a heavenly blue, and when she looks up into your face, and her eyes look at you, with the wistfulness of a lovely child's eyes, you want to take her in your arms, and kiss her—and kiss her——"