A steady look, a low laugh choked with many emotions answered
her.

"Do you want me to reply, Alicia? Or shall we let it pass?"

"Answer!"

It was Mr. Driscoll who spoke. Alicia had shrunk back, almost to
where a little figure was cowering with wide eyes fixed in
something like terror on the aroused father's face.

"Then hear me," murmured the girl, entrapped and suddenly
desperate. "I wore Alicia's slippers and I took the jewels,
because it was time that an end should come to your mutual
dissimulation. The love I once felt for her she has herself
deliberately killed. I had a lover--she took him. I had faith in
life, in honour, and in friendship. She destroyed all. A thief--
she has dared to aspire to him! And you condoned her fault. You,
with your craven restoration of her booty, thought the matter
cleared and her a fit mate for a man of highest honour."

"Miss West,"--no one had ever heard that tone in Mr. Driscoll's
voice before, "before you say another word calculated to mislead
these ladies, let me say that this hand never returned any one's
booty or had anything to do with the restoration of any
abstracted article. You have been caught in a net, Miss West,
from which you cannot escape by slandering my innocent
daughter."