“But why? What has the poor thing done?”
“She has thiefed!” Vivette spoke low, with a glance over her shoulder. “Chut! Madame knows not, nor our Sister. Solely of ourselves we de-cide to—vat vord is dat, Patricia? Carve? Cot?”
“Oh, do hush, Vivette!” said Patricia rather rudely. “You make my ears ache. If you must know, Honor, the poor thing—as you call her—and as she certainly is—stole a ring from my jewel-box. There! are you satisfied? We were not sent here to consort with thieves, so we have simply—shall I say eliminated her? As I told you, she no longer exists.”
“Oh, Patricia! Oh, girls! there must be some mistake!”
Genuinely distressed, Honor looked from one face to another. But now an excited babble broke out, the shrill young voices rising higher and higher.
Maria had always been a sneak, Moriole knew she had. She was a tale-bearer, a meddler, a spy. She was always poking her nose into other people’s affairs; and so on and so on.
Honor listened, her eyes growing wider and wider, as they did when she was troubled. Suddenly her cheeks flushed; her heart began to beat violently. She seemed to hear a voice speaking; a rich, mellow voice, with the sound of bells in it.
“And thus it is our custom to allow no evil to be spoken of any person without a good word being added by each one of the family.”
Honor covered her face with her hands.
“If I had dark hair,” she said to herself, “I could do it! If I had dark hair, I could do it!”