against the girl to the end that she might
beat out her life against the stone walls of a penitentiary.

For who would not believe his word against hers? Lyttleton had stolen
the jewels: what else had he carried so stealthily down to the beach?
What else had those signals meant but that they had been left there in
a prearranged spot? For what else had the boat put in from the yacht
to the beach? As for the window of the signals, it might well have
been Lyttleton's, which adjoined the row of three which Sally had
settled upon; and she had delayed so long after seeing him disappear
on the beach that he must have had ample time to return to his room,
flash the electric lights, and come out again to trap the one he knew
had been watching him.

And if he hadn't stolen the jewels, what else was that "private
matter" which he had been so anxious to keep quiet that he was
resigned to purchase Sally's silence even at the cost of making love
to her? And if not he, who had been the thief whose identity Mrs.
Gosnold was so anxious to conceal that she had invented her silly
scheme for extracting an anonymous confession?--her statement to the
contrary notwithstanding that Lyttleton had not stolen the
jewels and that she knew positively who had! The man was a favourite
of Mrs. Gosnold's; she had proved it too often by open indulgence of
his nonsense. He amused her. And it seemed that in this milieu the
virtue of being amusing outweighed all vices.

Why else had Mrs. Gosnold refused to listen to the story Sally was so
anxious to tell her about her precious Don Lyttleton? She must have
known, then, that Sally was under suspicion. Miss Pride had known it,
or she would not have found the courage to accuse the girl under the
guise of fortune-telling; and what Mercedes knew her dear Abigail
unfailingly was made a party to. And knowing all this, still she had
sought to protect the man at the girl's expense.

And all the while pretending to favour and protect the latter!

Now, doubtless, the truth of the matter would never come out.

In panic terror Sally envisaged the barred window of the spinster's
prophecy.

To this, then, had discontent with her lowly lot in life brought her,
to the threshold of a felon's cell.

Surely she was well paid out for her foolishness. . . .

After some time she found that she had left her chair and was
ranging wildly to and fro between the door and window. She halted, and
the mirror of her dressing-t