"Innocent!" All the tragedy latent in this peculiar girl's nature
blazed forth in the word. "Alicia, face me. Are you innocent? Who
took the Dempsey corals, and that diamond from the Tiffany tray?"

"It is not necessary for Alicia to answer," the father interposed
with not unnatural heat. "Miss West stands self-convicted."

"How about Lady Paget's scarf? I was not there that night."

"You are a woman of wiles. That could be managed by one bent on
an elaborate scheme of revenge."

"And so could the abstraction of Mrs. Barnum's five-hundred-
dollar handkerchief by one who sat in the next box," chimed in
Miss Hughson, edging away from the friend to whose honour she
would have pinned her faith an hour before. "I remember now
seeing her lean over the railing to adjust the old lady's shawl."

With a start, Caroline West turned a tragic gaze upon the
speaker.

"You think me guilty of all because of what I did last night?"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"And you, Anna?"

"Alicia has my sympathy," murmured Miss Benedict.

Yet the wild girl persisted.