r an instant by those
words; he thought that he had said enough to prevent the child from
breathing a syllable about that unlucky letter, and now Mabel knew
'everything!'

But he recovered his power of thought almost directly, feeling that
this was no time to lose his head. 'I suppose I'm expected to show
some emotion,' he said lightly; 'it's evidently something quite too
terrible. But I'm afraid _I_ want an explanation this time.'

'I think not, but you shall have it. I know that you came in and found
that poor child tearing off the stamp from some old envelope of mine,
and had the wickedness to tell her she had been stealing. Do you deny
it?'

'Some old envelope!' The worst of Caffyn's fear vanished when he heard
that. She did not know that it contained an unread letter then; she
did not guess--how could she, when Dolly herself did not know
it--where the letter had come from. He might appease her yet!

Caffyn's first inference, it may be said, was correct; in Dolly's mind
her guilt had consisted in stealing a marked stamp, and her hurried
and confused confession had, quite innocently and unconsciously, left
Mabel ignorant of the real extent and importance of what seemed to her
a quite imaginary offence.

'Deny it!' he said, 'of course not; I remember joking her a little
over something of the sort. Is _that_ all this tremendous indignation
is about--a joke?'

'A joke!' she said indignantly; 'you will not make anyone but
yourself merry over jokes like that. You set to work deliberately to
frighten her; you did it so thoroughly that she has been wretched for
days and days, ill and miserable with the dread of being sent to
prison. You _did_ threaten her with a prison, Harold; you told her she
must even be afraid of her own father--of all of us.... Who can tell
what she has been suffering, all alone, my poor little Dolly! And you
dare to call that a joke!'

'I never thought she would take it all so literally,' he said.

'Oh, you are not stupid, Harold; only a cruel fool could have thought
he was doing no harm. And you have seen her since again and again; you
must have noticed how changed she was, and yet you had no pity on her!
Can't you really see what a thing you have been doing? Do you often
amuse yourself in that way, and with children?'

'Hang it, Mabel,' said Caffyn uneasily, 'you're very hard on me!'

'Why were you hard on my darling Dolly?' Mabel demanded. 'What had she
done to you--how could you find