CHAPTER XVII.
A DENIAL "What do you know of the stiletto ?" repeated Mrs.Vrain anxiously.
She had risen to her feet, and, with an effort to be calm, was holding on to the near chair.

Her bright colour had faded to a dull white hue, and her eyes had a look of horror in their depths which transformed her from her childish beauty into a much older and more haggard woman than she really was.

It seemed as though Lucian, by some necromantic spell, had robbed her of youth, vitality, and careless happiness.

To him this extraordinary agitation was a proof of her guilt; and hardening his heart so as not to spare her one iota of her penalty--a mercy she did not deserve--he addressed her sternly: "I know that a stiletto purchased in Florence by your late husband hung on the library wall of Berwin Manor.

I know that it is gone!" "Yes! yes!" said Lydia, moistening her white, dry lips, "it is gone; but I do not know who took it." "The person who killed your husband." "I feared as much," she muttered, sitting down again.