"Well, what do you want of me, any way?"
Old Spicer regarded her in silence for a moment; and then, as if communing with himself, he murmured aloud:
"So pretty! and so young! Not above twenty-one or twenty-two, I should say. Sad, very sad. Enough to make a strong man weep."
"Oh! what is it—what is it that's so horrible?" gasped Cora, in an agony of terror.
"Ah! my poor girl, your own heart—your own conscience must tell you."
Cora started to her feet.
"Hear me, sir!" she cried. "I know nothing at all about it. I had nothing whatever to do with it."
Old Spicer quietly picked up the handkerchief, which had fallen to the floor, and holding it in one hand, while he pointed to it significantly with the other, said:
"That tells a different story, my dear."
"I know what you mean—yes, that's my handkerchief," she said, "but he took it that evening without my permission—that, and at least half a dozen others that I bought for him that day."