"Oh!" exclaimed Alice, clasping her hands, and lifting her white, beseeching face to her sister's, "did you take it? In—in sport; or in—— Oh, surely you were not tempted to take it for anything else? Forgive me, Selina! you said you had need of money."
"Alice, are we going to have one of your old scenes of excitement? Strive for calmness. I am sure you do not know what you are implying. My poor child, I would rather help you to jewels than take them from you."
"But look at the mystery."
"It does appear to be a mystery, but it will no doubt be cleared up," was the reply, calm and equable. "Alice, what could you have been dreaming of, to suspect me? Have we not grown up together in our honourable home? You ought to know me, if any one does."
"And you really saw nothing of it!" moaned Alice, with a sobbing of the breath.
"Indeed I did not. In truth, I did not. If I could help you out of your perplexity I would thankfully do it. Shall I return with you and assist you to search for the bracelet?"
"No, thank you. Every search has been made."
"You have not told me what could induce you to suspect me?"
"I think—it was the impossibility of suspecting any one else," breathed poor Alice, with hesitation. "And you told me, you know, Selina, how very badly you wanted money."
"So I do; far more badly than you have any idea of, child. So badly that the thought crossed me for a moment of applying to that dreadfully rich fifteenth cousin of papa's in Liverpool, Benjamin Dalrymple, who estranged himself from us years ago; but I knew he would only growl out a 'No' if I did apply. But not badly enough, Alice, to bring me to stealing a diamond bracelet," emphatically concluded Selina.