“Tavia, dear, don’t go on so!  It cannot be—­so very dreadful.”

“Oh, but it is!  I never should have done such a thing.  I knew better, and I tried to convince myself that I did not.  Then I should never have taken your money.  Oh, Doro, I deceived you, and I have deceived everybody!”

“You are excited and everything seems worse to you now, dear.  Try to be calm and tell me how I can help you.”

“You cannot—­nobody can.  Father is angry—­he wrote such a terrible letter, and how I dread to face him!”

“Perhaps we can arrange it so you will not have to go,” said Dorothy in her own way of promptly attempting to save Tavia from the consequences of her own folly.  “It is all about money, I know.”

“You know?”

“Yes; Miss Brooks told me that much.”

“Miss Brooks told you!”

“She merely said you were in some difficulty and asked me to advise you—­to tell your father all about it,” Dorothy said cautiously.

“Miss Brooks has no right to interfere!” snapped Tavia, immediately taking offense.  “Advice is always cheap!”

“But she surely did it out of kindness,” continued Dorothy, “and she really seemed very much concerned.”

“I don’t want to hear or know anything more about that—­person.  She is evidently trying to cover up her little mistake in putting a ring in the wrong bag.  She knows absolutely nothing about me—­she is merely guessing.”

Tavia felt she was making bad worse; it was not a time to attempt further deception.  But somehow the idea of Miss Brooks speaking to Dorothy angered her—­she was the one to do that.  Then followed the accusing voice of conscience: 

“But why did you not do so?  Why do you not do so now?”

“I suppose she told you that I—­”

“She told me nothing,” interrupted Dorothy, “but that you had made some mistake in a money matter and then suggested that the way for you to rectify it would be to write to your father and tell him all about it.”

“I wonder she did not essay to do that herself—­she seems perfectly qualified to attend to it all for me.”

“Now, Tavia,” began Dorothy, assuming a voice at once commanding and kind, “it is utterly useless for you to take that view of the matter.  If you dislike Miss Brooks’ interference, pay no attention to it.  Do what you think best.  Look the whole question squarely in the face, and then decide.”

All Tavia’s contrition and her determination to do what was right, which sentiment had entirely possessed her when she entered the room, seemed to have gone with the mention of Miss Brooks’ name.

“If she has told Dorothy,” thought Tavia, “there is no need for me to repeat it.”

So vanished the blessed power, truth, and so did the confusing and conflicting powers of deceit throng about her, and more than ever preclude the possibility of a happy solution for her difficulties.