"The--the woman's portrait, sir--is--is--the one in--in Mr. Ames's
yacht!"

_"My God!"_

The piercing cry rang through the still room like a lost soul's
despairing wail. Ames had rushed from his seat, overturning his chair,
thrusting the lawyers aside, and seized the locket. For a moment he
peered wildly into it. It seemed as if his eyes would devour it,
absorb it, push themselves clean through it, in their eagerness to
grasp its meaning.

Then he looked up. His eyes were red; his face ashen; his lips white.
His unsteady glance met the girl's. His mouth opened, and flapped like
a broken shutter in the wind. His arms swung wildly upward; then
dropped heavily. Suddenly he bent to one side; caught himself;
straightened up; and then, with a horrifying, gurgling moan, crashed
to the floor. The noise of the tremendous fall reverberated through
the great room like an echo of Satan's plunge into the pit of hell.

Pandemonium broke upon the scene. Wild confusion seized the excited
spectators. They rushed forward in a mass, over railings, over chairs
and tables, heedless of all but the great mystery that was slowly
clearing away in the dim light that winter's morning. Through them the
white-haired man, clad in clerical vestments, elbowed his way to the
bar.

"Let me see the locket!" he cried. "Let me see it!"

He tore it from Hood's hand and scanned it eagerly. Then he nodded his
head. "The same! The very same!" he murmured, trembling with
excitement. Then, shouting to the judge above the hubbub:

"Your Honor! I can throw some light upon this case!"

The crowd fell back.

"Who are you?" called the judge in a loud, quavering voice.

"I am Monsignor Lafelle. I have just returned from Europe. The woman's
portrait in this little locket is that of Dona Dolores, Infanta,
daughter of Queen Isabella the Second, of Spain! And this girl,"
pointing to the bewildered Carmen, who sat clinging to the arms of her
chair, "is her child, and is a princess of the royal blood! Her father
is the man who lies there--J. Wilton Ames!"

CHAPTER 18

Borne on pulsing electric waves, the news of the great _denouement_
flashed over the city, and across a startled continent. Beneath the
seas it sped, and into court and hovel. Madrid gasped; Seville panted;
and old Padre Rafael de Rincon raised his hoary head and cackled
shrilly.

To the seething court room came flying reporters and news gatherers,
who threw themselves despairingly