“Have the Cliffords ever dabbled in trade or trickery?  Coal merchants, coal heavers, and coal whippers may defile our fields with coal dust and smoke, but they can not defile our honor.”

“The men are brave as lions, and the women as chaste as snow?” sneered Bartley.

“I don’t know about lions and snow.  I have often seen a lion turn tail, and the snow is black slush wherever you are.  But the Cliffords, being gentlemen, are brave, and being ladies, are chaste.”

“Oh, indeed!” hissed Bartley.  “Then how comes it that your niece there—­whose name is Miss Clifford, I believe—­spent what this good man calls a honey-moon, with a young gentleman, at this good man’s inn?”

Here the good man in question made a faint endeavor to interpose, but the gentlefolks by their impetuosity completely suppressed him.

“It’s a falsehood!” cried Julia, haughtily.

“You scurrilous cad!” roared the Colonel, and shook his staff at him, and seemed on the point of charging him.

But Bartley was not to be put down this time.  He snatched the bracelet from the man, and held it up in triumph.

“And left this bracelet there to prove it was no falsehood.”

Then Julia got frightened at the evidence and the terrible nature of the accusation.  “Oh!” cried she, in great distress, “can any one here believe that I am a creature so lost?  I have not seen the bracelet these two months.  I lent it—­to—­ah, here she is!  Mary, save me from shame; you know I am innocent.”

Mary, who was standing at the window in Hope’s study, came slowly forward, pale as death with her own trouble, to do an act of womanly justice.  “Miss Clifford,” said she, languidly, as one to whom all human events were comparatively indifferent—­“Miss Clifford lent the bracelet to me, and I left it at that man’s inn.”  This she said right in the middle of them all.

The hotel-keeper took the bracelet from the unresisting hand of Bartley, touched his hat, and gave it to her.

“There, mistress,” said he.  “I could have told them you was the lady, but they would not let a poor fellow get a word in edgeways.”  He retired with an obeisance.

Mary handed the bracelet to Julia, and then remained passive.

A dead silence fell upon them all, and a sort of horror crept over Mary Bartley at what must follow; but come what might, no power should induce her to say the word that should send Walter Clifford to jail for seven years.

Bartley came to her; she trembled, and her hands worked.

“What are you saying, you fool?” he whispered.  “The lady that left the bracelet was there with a gentleman.”

Mary winced.

Then Bartley said, sternly, “Who was your companion?”

“I must not say.”

“You will say one thing,” said Bartley, “or I shall have no mercy on you.  Are you secretly married?”

Then a single word flashed across Mary’s almost distracted mind—­SELF-SACRIFICE.  She held her tongue.