"I have just come from Golden & Glitter's," said Kathleen. "I went there for my diamond necklace that I left there as security for a thousand dollars when I went away. They told me that Ivan Belmont had redeemed the necklace for his mother."
[CHAPTER XXXIX.]
KATHLEEN BEFORE HER FATHER'S PORTRAIT.
Oh, that those lips had language! Life has passed
With me but roughly since I heard thee last.
Those lips are thine—thy own sweet smile I see,
The same that oft in childhood solaced me.
Cowper.
Kathleen's declaration was almost equal to the bursting of a bomb-shell in the handsome library of the Carew mansion.
Alpine sprung excitedly to her feet with a scream of surprise, and fixed her dilated blue eyes almost wildly upon Kathleen's pale, angry face.
Her mother, who was so crafty and wicked that one could scarcely charge her with any meanness of which she was not guilty, had the novel sensation of being falsely accused for once, and recoiled with a nasty and indignant disclaimer from her insolent and threatening position toward the intruder.
"Your accusation is entirely false!" she cried, hoarsely.
But it was upon her dissipated son that Kathleen's words fell with the most crushing power.