“Don’t tell, don’t tell!” cried Annie. She came up to Leslie, and tried to put her hand across her mouth.
“I will tell him; but no one else,” said Leslie. “He must know; he drove you to it, and he must know. Listen,” she added. She came up close to Rupert Colchester, and stared him full in the face.
“Your sister wrote a letter in my name to my best friend. She wrote it to the man who is kinder to me than anyone else in the world. She signed the letter with my signature, and he thought that it came from me. Having written the letter, she made an excuse to go to London yesterday, and took it to him. It contained a request to give me, because I had gone into debt, sixty pounds. The money was to be given in notes and gold. She brought the money back, and now she, not I, is giving it to you.”
“Indeed!” said the man. He started back. He looked from Annie to Leslie.
“I didn’t know you were clever enough for that,” he said; “it seems to run in our blood—I mean the capacity for thieving. I did not know you could do it. You are clever enough, Annie, and you have cheek enough; but to do that, to commit a forgery, and to drag another girl in!”
“It was done for you, and you of all people ought not to blame her,” said Leslie.
“You had cheek,” repeated Colchester. He laid his hand lightly on his sister’s shoulder. “I thank you from my heart, of course, and you, too, Miss—Miss—I don’t know your name.”
“You had better not know it; I don’t want you to. Yes, she did it, and Mr. Parker thinks that I am guilty. Do you quite realize, both of you, what Annie Colchester has done?”
“I realize it fast enough,” said Colchester; “but you are a merciful girl. I see it in your eyes.”
“Nevertheless, I will state the position quite plainly. Your sister, by writing such a letter, committed forgery.”