"I don't know," she faintly said. "It was under my charge. No one else was there."
"You do not wish me to understand that you are suspected?" he burst forth with genuine feeling. "Their unjust meanness cannot have gone that length!"
"I trust not, but I am very unhappy. It is true I left the room when you did, but I only lingered outside on the stairs, watching—if I may tell the truth—whether you got out safely, and then I returned to it. Yet when Lady Sarah came up from dinner it was gone."
"And did no one else go into the room?" he repeated. "Did Selina? I met her at the door, and sent her upstairs."
"She went in for a minute. But she would not touch the jewels, Gerard."
"Of course not. She counts as ourselves in this. The bracelet was in the room when I left it——"
"You are sure of that?" interrupted Alice.
"I am. When I reached the door, I turned round to take a last look at you, and the diamonds of that particular bracelet gleamed at me from its place on the table."
"Oh, Gerard! Is this the truth?"
"It is the truth, on my sacred word of honour," he replied, looking at her agitated face and wondering at her words. "Why else should I say it? Good-bye, Alice; I cannot stay another moment, for there's somebody yonder I don't want to meet."