ollection and caused him to turn
with an expression of astonishment to Whitney Barnes.

But that young man was intensely occupied in a vain endeavor to draw
more than a monosyllable from the shrinking Sadie Burton. He missed
the look and went doggedly ahead with his own task. Helen Burton
repeated her remark that he had told her all about his paintings.

"Oh, has he?" responded Gladwin, dully.

"Yes, and they are worth a fortune!" cried the girl. "He simply adores
pictures."

"Yes, doesn't he, though?" assented the young man in the same vacuous
tones.

"And we are going to take the most valuable away with us to-night!"

Here was information to jar Jove on high Olympus. Travers Gladwin came
stark awake with a new and vital interest. There was glowing life in
his voice as he said:

"So you are going to take the pictures with you on your honeymoon?"

"Yes, indeed, we are."

"Won't that be nice?" was the best Gladwin could do, for he was trying
to think along a dozen different lines at the same time.

"We will be gone for ever so long, you know," volunteered Helen.

"Are you going to take his collection of miniatures?" the young man
asked in unconscious admiration of the colossal nerve of the gentleman
who had so nonchalantly appropriated his name.

"Miniatures?" asked Helen, wonderingly.

"Yes, of course," ran on Gladwin; "and the china and the family
plate--nearly two hundred years old."

"Why, I don't think he ever mentioned the miniatures, or, or"----

"That is singular," broke in Gladwin, striving to conceal the sarcasm
that crept into his voice. "Strange he overlooked the china, plate and
miniatures. I don't understand it, do you?" and he turned to Barnes,
who had caught the last of the dialogue and shifted his immediate
mental interest from the shy Sadie.

"No, I really don't, old man," said Barnes.

"Do let me show you the miniatures," Gladwin addressed Helen upon a
sudden inspiration.

"That will be splendid," cried Helen. "I adore miniatures."

"They are just in the next room," said Gladwin, leading the way to a
door to the left of the great onyx fireplace.

As she followed, Helen called to her cousin:

"Come along, Sadie, this will be a treat!"

But the next moment she was alone with Travers Gladwin in the long,
narrow room, two windows of which, protected by steel lattice work on
the inside, looked out on a side street.

The girl did not notice that as the young man preceded her he r