No sooner had Nick uttered these words than a loud cry rang through the house.
Instantly Millie Stevens appeared upon the threshold of the parlor.
"Horace!" she cried. "Tell me it is not true. You have not done this."
"Certainly not," he exclaimed. "It is an absurd slander. Carter, you'll be sorry for this."
The girl looked straight into Horace's face for an instant.
Then she uttered a moan.
"He is guilty!" she cried; "I can read it in his eyes. And I loved him so."
She sank upon the floor at her mother's feet.
"Oh, mother," she said, "this is a just punishment for me. You told me I must give him up. You read his heart.
"But I secretly accepted his love. I received letters in which he begged me to keep our love a secret, and in which I should have read a confession of guilt.