"Did she say that? Did Nora say that?" I exclaimed piteously.
"Oh, what a little liar she is! I suppose she thought it made
her more interesting to be so alone, more appealing to
kind-hearted gentlemen like yourself. I hope she wasn't
ungrateful to you, too, as she was to that kind Mr. Latimer,
before he found her out. And she had such a good position there,
too!"

I wanted to look at him, oh, I wanted to! But it was my role to
sit there with downcast eyes, just--the picture of holy grief.
I was the good one--the good, shocked sister, and though I wasn't a
bit afraid of anything he could do to me, or any game he could
put up, I yearned to make him believe me--just because he was so
suspicious, so wickedly smart, so sure he was on.

But his very silence sort of told me he almost believed, or that
he was laying a trap.

"Will you tell me," he said, "how you--your sister got Latimer
to lie for her?"

"Mr. Latimer--lie! Oh, you don't know him. He expected a lady to
read to him that very evening. He had never seen her, and when
Nora walked into the garden--"

"After getting a skirt somewhere."

"Yes--the housekeeper's, it happened to be her evening out--why,
he just naturally supposed Nora was Miss Omar."