"Don't continue, Grace," sharply interposed Lord Acorn; "you make my blood run cold. You must prove what you assert, or retract it. If--it--is proved"--the earl drew a long breath--"Cleveland must be extricated. What a thundering fool the fellow must be?" "Let me have time to think," said Grace, putting her hand to her head. "Extricated of course he must be, for I know it is true, but--if possible--without exposing Adela." With the last words, Grace sank back in her chair and burst into a storm of sobs. Lord Acorn was little less moved. They spoke together further, and agreed not to tell Mary Cleveland, in spite of her state of impatience, that Lord Acorn had traced the numbers of the two notes. Lady Grace decided to confide all to Mr. Grubb. It could not be kept from him long; and she wanted to bespeak his clemency for Adela. So in the evening she proceeded to his house, tolerably sure that her sister would be out somewhere or other. But she found Mr. Grubb also out: at his club, Hilson thought. Grace dismissed her carriage, went up to the drawing-room, and wrote a word to Mr. Grubb, asking him to come home. The thought crossed her, that perhaps it was not quite the thing to do, but Lady Grace Chenevix was not the one to stand upon formal ceremony. He returned at once, looking rather anxious. "Anything the matter, Grace? Anything amiss with Adela? She's not ill?" "She is at the opera, I fancy; very well, no doubt." And then she sat down and imparted her suspicions--just an allusion to them--that her poor sister was the culprit. "Grace," he whispered, "I don't mind telling you that the same fear haunted me, and I spoke to her. She indignantly denied it." "Two of the notes have been traced," murmured Grace. "Traced!" "Paid away by Adela at Lady Sanely's." There was a dead silence. Lady Grace Chenevix did not raise her eyelids, for she felt keenly the pain of avowal. An ominous shade of despair overspread his face. "Grace, Grace," he broke forth in anguish, "what is it you are saying?" "One of them, for fifty pounds, came into my father's hands today, and he has traced it back to Adela," continued Grace, striving to keep down the signs of her pain. "Another of them she paid the same evening to the Dowager Beck. Papa knows of this; he found it out today. What inference can we draw but that Adela---- You know what I would say." "Could she descend to this?" he groaned. "To be a party with Charles Cleveland in----" "Charles was no party to it," interrupted Grace, warmly; "he must have been her instrument, nothing more. Rely upon that. Whatever may be his follies, he is the soul of honour. And it must be from some chivalrous sense of honour, of noblesse oblige, you understand, that he is continuing to shield her now the matter has come out. What is to be done? Charles Cleveland must not be tried as a felon."