e was a wait of several hours. Steele insisted on the
girl's going with him for a drive. At a picture-exhibition, they
stopped.

"Somehow," said Steele, "I feel that where there are paintings there
may be clews. Shall we go in?"

The girl listlessly assented, and they entered a gallery, which they
found already well filled. Steele was the artist, and, once in the
presence of great pictures, he must gnaw his way along a gallery wall
as a rat gnaws its way through cheese, devouring as he went, seeing
only that which was directly before him. The girl's eyes ranged more
restlessly.

Suddenly, Steele felt her clutch his arm.

"George!" she breathed in a tense whisper. "George!"

He followed her impulsively pointed finger, and further along, as the
crowd of spectators opened, he saw, smiling from a frame on the wall,
the eyes and lips of the girl herself. Under the well-arranged lights,
the figure stood out as though it would leave its fixed place on the
canvas and mingle with the human beings below, hardly more lifelike
than itself.

"The portrait!" exclaimed Steele, breathlessly. "Come, Duska; that may
develop something."

As they anxiously approached, they saw above the portrait another
familiar canvas; a landscape presenting a stretch of valley and
checkered flat, with hills beyond, and a sky tuneful with the spirit
of a Kentucky June.

Then, as they came near enough to read the labels, Steele drew back,
startled, and his brows darkened with anger.

"My God!" he breathed.

The girl standing at his elbow read on a brass tablet under each
frame, "Frederick Marston, pnxt."

"What does it mean?" she indignantly demanded, looking at the man
whose face had become rigid and unreadable.

"It means they have stolen his pictures!" he replied, shortly. "It
means infamous thievery at least, and I'm afraid--" In his anger and
surprise, he had almost forgotten to whom he was speaking. Now, with
realization, he bit off his utterance.

She was standing very straight.

"You needn't be afraid to tell me," she said quietly; "I want to
know."

"I'm afraid," said Steele, "it means foul play. Of course," he added
in a moment, "Marston himself is not a party to the fraud. It's
conceivable that his agent, this man St. John, has done this in
Marston's absence. I must get to Paris and see."

CHAPTER XVII

In the compartment of the railway carriage, Steele was gazing fixedly
at the lace "tidy" on the cushioned back