“And what,” she said, when he had finished, as she put her elbows on the table, still with her hands laced together, and looked at him with a sort of scornful challenge, “did you think of that?” Once more he hesitated. Then he said-- “I did not know what to think, Miss Davison.” She smiled with the same superb scorn. “Did you,” she asked majestically, as she looked at him through her eyelashes with an air of ineffable contempt, “think I was a thief?” The blood rushed to his cheeks. “How can you ask me such a question?” he stammered. “But,” persisted she, “I don’t know what else you can mean, if you really saw what you say you did, and if you put upon it the construction which anybody else would put.” “You said,” he murmured, in a hoarse whisper, “that you would explain.” “Well,” said she, “what do you want me to say? Do you want me to assure you that I am not a thief?” “Of course not.” “Do you want me to say that it was not I you saw?” He drew a long breath. “You can’t say that,” he retorted passionately. “Oh yes, I can, and I do,” said Rachel slowly. “Forgive me, Mr. Buckland, if I’ve seemed to take this too lightly, but the truth is that the whole affair is a desperately serious one for me. That girl has roused suspicions in more people than one, and will again, I’m afraid.” “What girl?” “The one you saw--my ‘double’--Maud Smith, as she calls herself, a well-known thief.” Gerard sat back and looked at her incredulously. Then he bent forward again, and looking earnestly, entreatingly into her face, asked-- “Do you mean to tell me that the girl I saw that night was not you?” “I can answer for that,” she said. “What should I be doing in a crowd at that time of night--and picking pockets?” “Oh, I didn’t say that!” “Didn’t you? I think you implied it, though. You saw this girl pass jewelry to another person. And then you saw no more of them. Is any other explanation possible than that they were a couple of thieves?” It seemed to him callous, horrible, for her to put his unspoken dread into simple, straightforward speech. He shrank before her as she did so. “I--I thought perhaps I was mistaken, and that--” “But you were not,” she interrupted sharply. “It is the bane of my life, that this girl, who is, I am sorry to say, a relation of mine--” “A relation?” “A near relation,” she repeated solemnly. “I say it is the greatest trial I have to put up with that she should go about as she does, and lead the dishonest career she does, and that the likeness between us should be so strong that not you only, but two or three more of my friends have seen her and have thought--what you thought,” she added quickly. He tried to look as if he believed her, but failed. “And you say her name is Maud Smith?”