"Search me!" the girl exclaimed indignantly. "Certainly not!"
"Lizzie," said Tish in her sternest manner, "go over that girl. Look in her riding-boots. I haven't come across Mrs. Ostermaier's earrings yet."
At that the girl changed color and backed off.
"It's an outrage," she said. "Surely I have suffered enough."
"Not as much," Tish observed, "as you are going to suffer. Go over her, Lizzie."
While I searched her, Tish was lecturing her.
"You come from a good home, I understand," she said, "and you ought to know better. Not content with breaking an honest heart, you join a moving-picture outfit and frighten a prominent divine—for Mr. Ostermaier is well known—into what may be an illness. You cannot deny," she accused her, "that it was you who coaxed them to the pass. At least you needn't. We heard you."
"How was I to know—" the girl began sullenly.
But at that moment I found Mrs. Ostermaier's chamois bag thrust into her riding-boot, and she suddenly went pale.
Tish held it up before her accusingly. "I dare say you will not deny this," she exclaimed, and took Mrs. Ostermaier's earrings out of it.