“N-o, I’m afraid not. Yet I dislike, of all things, that you should have got them in the way you have.”
Mrs. Coolidge took up the diamond necklace, and it sparkled in her hands like huge drops of dew in the sun.
“Very well; I will replace them at once, mamma, if you think best, and we will say no more about it,” replied her daughter, cunningly.
She had noticed the avaricious gleam in her mother’s eyes as they contemplated their beauty, and she knew she would give as much to possess them as she would herself.
“That would never do, my daughter. I should not rest easy while there is a suspicion against Miss Douglas’ honesty in my heart. There is only one thing to be done now.”
“What is that?”
“We must demand an explanation of her immediately upon her return.”
“Of course, she has a trumped-up story of some kind; she is too artful not to be prepared for us.”
“She will have to prove her property, my dear. At all events, I shall advise her to dispose of them in some way. It is not proper for a governess to have such valuables.”
“Perhaps she would sell them to us, mamma,” said Isabel, a greedy look in her eyes. “That tiara would be vastly becoming to me.”