You have kept my manuscript from
me all this time, but, severe though the punishment has been, I
deserved it, yes, every day of it."
Lady Pippinworth smiled.
"You took it from my bag, did you not?" said Tommy.
"Yes."
"Where is it, Alice? Have you got it here?"
"No."
"But you know where it is?"
"Oh, yes," she said graciously, and then it seemed that nothing could
ever disturb him again. She enjoyed his boyish glee; she walked by his
side listening airily to it.
"Had there been a fire in the room that day I should have burned the
thing," she said without emotion.
"It would have been no more than my deserts," Tommy replied
cheerfully.
"I did burn it three months afterwards," said she, calmly.
He stopped, but she walked on. He sprang after her. "You don't mean
that, Alice!"
"I do mean it."
With a gesture fierce and yet imploring, he compelled her to stop.
"Before God, is this true?" he cried.
"Yes," she said, "it is true"; and, indeed, it was the truth about his
manuscript at last.
"But you had a copy of it made first. Say you had!"
"I had not."
She seemed to have no fear of him, though his face was rather
terrible. "I meant to destroy it from the first," she said coldly,
"but I was afraid to.
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