y tied round a stick
from his pocket.

"I am going to disprove that once and for all," he said. "The Rembrandt
is at present in Lord Littimer's collection. There is an account of it in
to-day's _Telegraph_. It is perfectly familiar to both of you. And, that
being the case, what do you think of this?"

He unrolled the paper before Enid's astonished eyes. Margaret Henson
glanced at it listlessly; she was fast sinking into the old, strange
oblivion again. But Enid was all rapt attention.

"I would have sworn to that as Lord Littimer's own," she gasped.

"It is his own," Bell replied. "Stolen from him and a copy placed by some
arch-enemy in my portmanteau, it was certain to be found on the frontier.
Don't you see that there were two Rembrandts? When the one from my
portmanteau was restored to Littimer his own was kept by the thief.
Subsequently it would be exposed as a new find, with some story as to its
discovery, only, unfortunately for the scoundrel, it came into my
possession."

"And where did you find it?" Enid asked. "I found it," Bell said, slowly,
"in a house called 218, Brunswick Square, Brighton."

A strange cry came from Enid's lips. She stood swaying before her lover,
white as the paper upon which her eyes were eagerly fixed. Margaret
Henson was pacing up and down the room, her lips muttering, and raising a
cloud of pallid dust behind her.

"I--I am sorry," Enid said, falteringly. "And all these years I have
deemed you guilty. But then the proof was so plain; I could not deny the
evidence of my own senses. And Von Gulden came to me saying how deeply
distressed he was, and that he would have prevented the catastrophe if he
could. Well?"

A servant stood waiting in the doorway with wondering eyes at the sight
of a stranger.

"I'm sorry, miss," she said, "but Miss Christiana is worse; indeed, she
quite frightens me. I've taken the liberty of telephoning to Dr. Walker."

The words seemed to bring consciousness to Margaret Henson.

"Christiana worse," she said. "Another of them going; it will be a happy
release from a house of sorrow like this. I will come up, Martin."

She swept out of the room after the servant. Enid appeared hardly to have
heard. Bell looked at her inquiringly and with some little displeasure.

"I fancy I have heard you speak of your sister Christiana," he said.
"Is she ill?"

"She is at the point of death, I understand; you think that I am callous.
Oh, if you only knew! But the l