“Yes,” I answered in a low voice.
“And do you know that that doll was a present from your mother, and that you ought to have preserved it as something sacred? Did you steal it?”
“No,” I answered, raising my head.
“How can you say no?” my father suddenly shouted. “You stole it and took it away. Whom did you take it to? Speak!”
He strode swiftly toward me, and laid a heavy hand upon my shoulder. I raised my head with an effort, and looked up. My father’s face was pale. The frown of pain which had lain between his brows since my mother’s death was still there, but now his eyes were flashing with sombre wrath. I shrank away. I seemed to see madness—or was it hatred?—glaring at me out of those eyes.
“Well, what did you do? Answer!” And the hand which was holding my shoulder gripped it more tightly than before.
“I—I won’t tell you,” I answered in a low voice.
“Yes, you will tell me!” my father rapped out, and there was a threat in his voice.
“I won’t tell you,” I whispered lower still.
“You will, you will!”