"How know I?" cried the man, in amazement. "Why--"
There he stopped and knit his brows.

"I knew thou wert deceiving us when thee said 't was not
thine," charged the girl.

"Nay, Miss Janice, 't was the truth I told you, though
a quibble, I own. The miniature never was mine, tho' 't was
once in my possession."

"Then how came you by it?"

"I took it by force from--never mind whom." The old bitter
look was on the man's face, and anger burned in his eyes.

"You stole it!" cried the girl, drawing away from him.

"Not I," denied the man. "'T was taken from one who
had less right to 't than I."

"You knew her?" questioned the girl.

"Ay," cried the man, with a kind of desperation. "I
should think I did!"

"And--and you--you loved her?" she asked with a
hesitancy which might mean that she was in doubt whether
to ask the question, or perhaps that she rather hoped her
surmise would prove wrong.