Lettice was seated in a drooping attitude on the sofa, leaning forward, as if lost in thought. At this question, she lifted her face straightway, aglow with the eager desire to speak, the certainty that he would believe her. Once more her lips parted with the outbursting, "No, no! Oh, no!" And again the checking thought of Felix came. If she were cleared, would not suspicion fall upon him? Would not Sissie have desired her at every hazard to shelter Felix? "Not one word!" She pressed her lips to his hand, but did not speak, and Dr. Bryant drew the hand away. "Am I to count you guilty—you, my little Lettice!" The Doctor could hardly speak. "Child, this is too terrible." "If only you would not ask—" she faltered. "Not ask! Rubbish!" The Doctor was growing angry. "I must ask. What on earth do you mean? Things look dark, and I offer to trust you absolutely, if you simply say 'No.' If you do not, what can I think, but that you did take the money?" Lettice patiently dropped her head again. "For Felix's sake! For Sissie's sake!" she kept saying. And she forgot what was due to this kind uncle to whom she owed so much. "Did you take it, Lettice?" The Doctor spoke severely now, and his brows were drawn together. The girl's chest heaved. "Then—I have no choice. I must look upon the child I love, as a miserable thief." "O no," shrieked Lettice, resolution failing as he turned away. "You deny it!" She wrung her hands over her face, in the struggle not to answer. Dr. Bryant walked up and down the room twice with heavy steps. "No choice seems left to me," he said at length, pausing by her. "Listen! Since you cannot deny the theft, nothing remains but free confession. Tell me how you came to do it—and what you have done with the money. If you are sorry, say so. I may at least forgive. The relations between us cannot be what they have been, if you are capable of such a deed—still, I can believe that there has been some peculiar temptation. Only you must tell me all." The Doctor was surprised afresh. As he spoke, Lettice threw up her head, and the honest eyes, dimmed with tears, looked full into his with a glance of indignant reproach. "But I—" she exclaimed. And though she stopped, the Doctor knew as distinctly as if she had finished, that she had all but said—"I did not do it." "Go on." A negative movement of the head answered him. "There is some mystery here. All I can understand of it is—that you wish me to count you guilty—" She moved her lips, as if in protest. "And that you—are not guilty." Another swift glance, this time of gratitude. It was swiftly checked. "I cannot fathom your motives," Dr. Bryant went on, with judicially-assumed sternness: "nor can I suppose them to be right. But I confess, without stronger evidence, I am unable to believe this thing of you." "Evidence enough for any reasonable person, I should think," said Theodosia, in his rear. "If you want more proof, why not search her boxes!"