Witch Hazel; or, The Secret of the Locket — page 266: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

self; ‘but I have only my own word to substan- tiate it.” | Helena sneered audibly, and then turning, she abruptly left the room. | Belle, on the contrary, drew close to her unhappy | friend and slipped her arm around her waist, while her eyes, as they rested upon her face, were full of a fond trust and sympathy. “Then you utterly refuse to give us the name of this young man?’ said the detective. “T cannot—at least, not now,” Hazel replied, firmly. The detective bent his head in thought for a tew moments. Then he said to Mrs. Stewart : “You have told me that you locked the door of your room immediately after your eldest daughter, who saw you put the necklace in its case, left you; that you examined every window screen, and found it securely fastened; that there was no evidence, when you awoke, of any one having been in the room during the night; that when you came down in the morning you re-locked your door, and put the key in your pocket, and that you met Miss Gay just coming in from a row on the water?” “Yes,” said Mrs. Stewart, in reply to all this. “You ‘told me, also, that Miss Gay went out very early—at six o’clock 2” he pursued. “Yes; she says she went out at that time, and the servants say the same.” “Then itis very evident that, if she stole this neck lace from you, she must have entered your room sometime between the hour of your return from the ball and six o’clock this morning?” — Mrs. Stewart looked both puzzled and distressed. “T do not see how that could be,” she said, ‘‘for the key was in wy door this morning just as. leftit after locking it last night.” : .