"I never said it was Lady Linacre's. It was you who said that," he continued, his head high, a change in his demeanour, an incisiveness almost harsh in his tone. "It was you--you who suspected me! I could not show you my arm because I had that bracelet on it."
"And whose bracelet is it?" Burton Smith murmured, shaken as much by the sudden change in the man's demeanour as by his denial.
"It is your cousin's--Miss Burton's. We are engaged," Wibberley continued sternly--so entirely had the two changed places. "She intended to tell you to-morrow. I saw it on the table, and secreted it when I thought that no one was looking. I needed a pattern--for a bracelet I am giving her."
"And it was Joanna's bracelet that Vereker May saw you take?"
"Precisely."
Burton Smith said a word about the Civilian which we need not repeat. Then, "But why on earth, old fellow, did you not explain?" he asked.
"First," Wibberley replied with force, "because I should have had to proclaim my engagement to all those fools; and I had not Joanna's permission to do that. Secondly--well, I did not wish to confess to being such an idiot as I was."
"Ah!" said Burton Smith, slowly, an odd light in his eyes. "I think you were a fool, but--I suppose you will shake hands?"
"Certainly, old man." And they did so, warmly.
"Now," continued the barrister, his face becoming serious again, "the question is, where is Lady Linacre's bracelet?"