Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/248

 We couldn t hear every word that was spoken, but we heard—enough."

"My God! Then it was as I feared."

"I don't know what you mean," the girl said anxiously.

"Tell me the whole story," Sir Ian insisted. "How you got the key; why you were there, why Barr chose that day—everything."

"Yes, I will tell you. I may as well, now," she returned. "Ian had been making plans to go to America. He had heard of a chance. I wouldn't let him write to me at your house. I was afraid—that I'd never get the letters."

"You thought we would intercept them? How childish—and sensational!"

"Life is sensational. You ought to know that now! I didn't think you would stoop to such a thing. I liked and admired you very much, then; and Ian adored you for what he called your immense goodness to him, in spite of adverse circumstances and opposition from the one nearest you. But I did think Lady Hereward might do something. Even that she might have left instructions when she went to Paris, with one of the servants, to watch if I had letters. She detested Ian. She had the cruellest suspicions against him. He could have proved that she was wrong, I'm sure, if he would, though even to me he never told the truth about—about Liane. He only said that