"He has no right to call me a spy," cried the girl, indignantly.

"His words deserve no more heed than what he said t'other
night at the tavern of ye."

"What said he at the tavern?" demanded Janice.

"'T is best left unspoken."

"I want to know what he said of me," insisted Miss Meredith.

"'T would only shame ye."

"He--he told of--he did n't tell them I took the miniature?"
faltered Janice.

Again Evatt bit his lip, but this time to keep from smiling.
"Worse than that, my child," he replied.

"Why should he insult me?" protested Janice, proudly,
but still colouring at the possibility.

"Ye do right to suppose it unlikely. Yet 't is so, and while
I can hardly hope that my word will be taken for it, his lies to
us a moment since prove that he is capable of any untruth."

Evatt spoke with such honesty of manner, and with such an
apparent lack of motive for inventing a tale, that Janice became
doubtful. "He could n't insult me," she said, "for I--I