t her to have: a diamond necklace; a
_riviere_" (she began to check the items off on her fingers)--"there
were two, and of course Aunt Sparling had the best; two bracelets, one
with turquoises and one with pearls; a diamond brooch; an opal pendant;
a little watch set with diamonds grandma used to wear; and then a lot of
plate! Mother wrote me out a list--I've got it here."

She opened a beaded bag on her wrist, took out half a sheet of paper,
and handed it to Diana.

Diana looked at it in silence. Even her lips were white, and her fingers
shook.

"Did you ever send this to papa?" she asked, after a minute.

Fanny fidgeted again.

"Yes."

"And what did he say? Have you got his letter?"

"No; I haven't got his letter."

"Did he admit that--that mamma had done this?"

Fanny hesitated: but her intelligence, which was of a simple kind, did
not suggest to her an ingenious line of reply.

"Well, I dare say he didn't. But that doesn't make any difference."

"Was that what he and Uncle Merton quarrelled about?"

Fanny hesitated again; then broke out: "Father only did what he
ought--he asked for what was owed mother!"

"And papa wouldn't give it!" cried Diana, in a strange note of scorn;
"papa, who never could rest if he owed a farthing to anybody--who always
overpaid everybody--whom everybody--"

[Illustration: "YOU NEEDN'T BE CROSS WITH ME, DIANA"]

She rose suddenly with a bitten lip. Her eyes blazed--and her cheeks.
She walked to the window and stood looking out, in a whirlwind of
feeling and memory, hiding her face as best she could from the girl
who sat watching her with an expression half sulky, half insolent. Diana
was thinking of moments--recalling forgotten fragments of dialogue--in
the past, which showed her father's opinion of his Barbadoes
brother-in-law: "A grasping, ill-bred fellow"--"neither gratitude, nor
delicacy"--"has been the evil genius of his wife, and will be the ruin
of his children." She did not believe a word of Fanny's story--not a
word of it!

She turned impetuously. Then, as her eyes met Fanny's, a shock ran
through her--the same sudden, inexplicable fear which had seized on Mrs.
Colwood, only more sickening, more paralyzing. And it was a fear which
ran back to and linked itself with the hour of heart-searching in the
wood. What was Fanny thinking of?--what was in her mind--on her lips?
Impulses she could not have defined, terrors to which she could give no
name, crept over Diana