"Is it possible, Mrs. Rushmere," and Gilbert looked and spoke sternly, "that you can have disgraced yourself and me in this outrageous manner, and cruelly insulted a noble girl, whose shoe latchet you are not worthy to unloose."
"Open the trunk. Don't talk in that style to me; I have my doubts as to this fine young lady's honour, and I don't mean to leave the room until they are satisfied."
"Mr. Gilbert, do what she requires, or, after I am gone, she may accuse me of theft, when I am not here to defend my character."
"That cannot be recovered, that was lost long ago," said the cold-hearted woman.
Gilbert reluctantly opened the trunk, and his wife, coolly kneeling down upon the floor, proceeded to toss over its neatly arranged contents; presently she dived down among the clothes, and, quickly withdrawing her hand, held up two silver table spoons.
"Who do these belong to?" she cried with a laugh of fiendish triumph.
"They are not mine," said Dorothy, trembling from head to foot. "They were never placed there by me."
"Oh, of course not. Every thief is honest till they are found out. I suppose you never saw these spoons before."
"I have cleaned them a thousand times," said Dorothy calmly, for she saw that she was in her enemy's power. "They were on the dinner table to-day. I have not seen them since. In what manner you have contrived to produce them out of my trunk, God only knows. This I can declare in His holy presence, that I never placed them there."
"You need not assert your innocence, Dorothy," replied Gilbert, who had seen an expression on his wife's face that convinced him that she was the incendiary. "I know you too well to believe you guilty for a moment."