"Gone, gone." Jean took the offending novel back home with him, hidden under his jerkin; but Beverley's note lay upon Alice's heart, a sweet comfort and a crushing weight, when an hour later Hamilton sent for her and she was taken before him.

Her face was stained with tears and she looked pitifully distressed and disheveled; yet despite all this her beauty asserted itself with subtle force.
Hamilton felt ashamed looking at her, but put on sternness and spoke without apparent sympathy: "Miss Roussillon, you came near committing a great crime.

As it is, you have done badly enough; but I wish not to be unreasonably severe.

I hope you are sorry for your act, and feel like doing better hereafter." She was trembling, but her eyes looked steadily straight into his.

They were eyes of baby innocence, yet they irradiated a strong womanly spirit just touched with the old perverse, mischievous light which she could neither banish nor control.