u sure--?" she stammered.

"Yes?" Mrs. Gosnold prompted with an accent of surprise. "What is it,
Sally?"

The girl gulped hard, and mechanically put a hand to her throat,
rising as she spoke.

"Are you sure Mrs. English is on the Island?"

"What of it? Why, I presumed you would be glad of the opportunity to
thank her for that letter of--"

"There was no letter!"

"I beg pardon?" Mrs. Gosnold opened wide her eyes.

"I say," Sally faltered, yet with determination, "there was no letter.
Mrs. Standish--that is--we both lied to you. I don't know Mrs.
English; I never spoke a word to her in all my life. I didn't take any
letter to Mrs. Standish. That was a story manufactured out of whole
cloth to account for me--get me this position here."

"Oh, yes," Mrs. Gosnold assented coolly. "I felt quite sure of that in
the beginning. You never could believe a word Adele said from the time
she was able to talk. Even if the truth would have served as well and
with less trouble, she was sure to disfigure it beyond identification.
And Walter's just as bad. But you, my dear, will never make a good
liar; the first words we spoke together I saw your eyes wince, and
knew you were tormented by something on your conscience. Moreover, the
last person Edna English would send anyone with a letter of
recommendation to is my niece, who has not yet been proved guilty
of one unselfish act. So I thought I'd test the story. Now you
may tear up that note--Mrs. English is in Italy this very day, to the
best of my belief--and tell me what it's all about."

CHAPTER XII

MACHIAVELLIAN

Within the span of an exceedingly bad quarter of an hour for Sally the
cat was completely out of the bag, the fat as irretrievably in the
fire; Sally was out of breath and in tears of penitence and despair;
Mrs. Gosnold was out of her chair, thoughtfully pacing to and fro, and
in full possession of all facts materially bearing upon the
translation of S. Manvers of the Hardware Notions into S. Manwaring of
the Golden Destiny.

No vital detail had escaped her penetrating probe; she proved herself
past mistress in the art of cross-examination, and found in Sally a
willing witness.

For the latter, however, it had seemed less giving of testimony than a
hysteric confessional. She had wrung her conscience dry, deriving from
the act a sort of awful joy mitigated by the one regret: that she had
not more to confess, that the mystery of her favouring must remain a