With which words he folded the paper, and placed it in his pocket.
Daisy, too, read the paragraph that night, and the blood rushed into her cheeks, then left them very pale.
It was simply a police report—such as you read over your morning coffee, without thinking how many hearts may be broken by the sight of that little cluster of worn-out type. A young man, no name given, recently a clerk in the house of Messrs. Flint & Snarle, had been arrested on the charge of stealing a case of jewels from his employers.
Daisy, with dry eyes, read it again and again. Dark doubt and trusting love were at conflict for a moment; for doubt had pride for its ally, and love was only love. But the woman conquered. Mortimer, who had been arrested early in the forenoon, found means to send Daisy a note, in which he simply said—"I am charged with stealing the necklace, but I am as guiltless of the crime as you, Daisy."
Mrs. Snarle came in the room while our little heroine held the note in her hand.
"Mother," said Daisy, averting her head, "Mortimer will not come home to-night."
With this she threw the note into the fire, and left Mrs. Snarle alone, before the good lady asked any questions.
"That's very odd!" soliloquized Mrs. Snarle, briefly.
"You tell me that you are innocent," said Daisy, looking at a small portrait of Mortimer which hung over the fire-place—"I do not question, I only believe you!"
And then Daisy did a very strange thing, and yet it was very like Daisy. She untied the brown ribbon which bound her dark lengths of hair, allowing them to fall over her shoulders; then she braided the string of pearls with her tresses, and brought the whole in a beautiful band over her forehead. And she looked like a little queen with this coronal of jet and pearl shading her brows.