Cora turned so as to look into Ida's face, and she could plainly see that a change came over her countenance.
"Paul Hastings found it?" murmured Ida. "The ring with my initials in?"
"Yes. Didn't you really lose it?"
For a moment Ida did not speak. She was biting her lips, and her fingers were nervously playing with the fringe on the lap robe.
"Cora," she exclaimed impulsively, "I have been mean—hateful to you—but—you have not deserved it. Sid Wilcox told me he had you out riding, and he said you spoke of a lot of things about me—"
"What!" cried Cora. "He dared to say that?"
"Yes; and people saw you out with him."
"So they might have; but the truth was he jumped into my car and ran away with it without my permission. That's how I came to be in the motor with him."
"He never told me that!" exclaimed Ida. "Well, that's just like him. Now I will tell you. It was he who forced that ring on me—and I would not take it at first. But he made me. Then I determined to get rid of it. I did not lose it, but I slipped it into Walter Pennington's pocket. Oh, Cora! You know I—I do like Walter, and I—I thought if he saw that I wouldn't keep some one else's engagement ring that—somehow—he might send it back where it came from, and—and—"
Her tears interrupted her. Cora did not understand.