CHAPTER XIX.
Had a spark of human feeling been left in Dalton's body, it would have been kindled into a flame of sympathy, could he have seen Lady Barbara when she opened the box early next morning, and stood trembling over the loss of the mantilla.
Her first hope was that she had inadvertently taken it to Rosenthal's with the other pieces of lace, and that Mangan had found it when he checked up her work.

Then a cold chill ran through her, her anxiety increasing every moment.

Had she dropped it in the street?
Had the woman who jostled her on the way up the long staircase to the workroom, picked up her package when she stumbled?
Perhaps some one had crept in during the night and, finding the box near the door, had caught up the mantilla and escaped without being detected?
Could she herself have dragged it into her bedroom, entangled in the folds of her skirt?
Was it not near the window, or in her basket, or behind the door, or-- Martha, with a shake of her head, put all these theories to flight.
"No, it isn't in your room at all, and it isn't anywhere else around here; and nobody's been in here from the outside; and they couldn't get in if they tried, for I bolted the door when we went to bed.

The only person who has had the run of the place is Mr.Dalton, and he--" "Martha!" "Well, I wasn't here when he first came, but when I opened the door he was peeking behind the china." "But I had not been inside my room a minute before I heard your voice.
How could he have taken it?
You don't think--" "I don't say what I think, because I don't know, but he's mean enough to do anything he could to hurt you.

How long had he been talking to you when I came in ?" "Just long enough for me to run past him and lock myself in." "And how long do you think it would take him to steal it, if he thought nobody was looking ?" "But he could not have stolen it, Martha; he was on the other side of the room.