ack,--"I took precautions before I
left town, and Mrs. James B. will be over as soon as she hears I'm home.
I'm getting initiated. What are you reading, Janet?"

"The Essays. I found the place where we left off. They're rather dry,
but I like them."

"When you do not like a really good thing," Devant said, going to his
easy-chair, "read it until you do. Bring the book here, child! I haven't
read aloud since you and I were alone before."

Janet arose, and as she did so something dropped at her feet. She
stooped to pick it up, looked a bit surprised and confused, and slipped
it into her blouse.

"What was that?" Devant asked.

"My--" Janet paused; "it was my mother's picture! I always carry it in
my waist now. I dropped it."

"May I see it?"

"Cap'n Daddy said"--how long ago it seemed--"that I had better not show
it, it seems as though she belonged just to Cap'n Billy and me. But then
you are different. I think Cap'n Billy would not mind if you saw her.
She was so pretty!" Janet came to the table, laid the book upon it, and
then drew--_two_ photographs from her blouse!

"Why!" she exclaimed, turning pale and stepping back, "why!
I'm--I'm--why, something has happened. Look here!"

She extended her hands, and in both was the likeness of the dead Past!
Identical they were! Both well preserved and arisen to face this man and
young girl at God's own time! How shrivelled the memory of the grim
error was! How weird and pitiful it arose against the youth and beauty
of the vital creature who with outstretched arms challenged him to
explain the black mystery!

[Illustration: "'What do you know of my mother?'"]

"This--is--my--mother! I must have dropped one picture from the book.
What do you know of my mother?"

It was only a palpitating question, but to Devant it bore the awful
condemnation of outraged girlhood.

"My God!" he gasped, taking the photographs from her. "My God!" There
could be no mistake. Both had been taken from the same negative!

Old Thorndyke had lied then! This girl, with her memory-haunting,
elusive beauty, was--he sank back and stared at her. No: it could not
be! Whatever the meaning was, he dared not think that she was his
daughter! If Thorndyke had lied once, he probably had many times. There
may not have been a child; but that would have been a senseless
invention--and Thorndyke was not the man to waste his energies. Perhaps
the first child had died. Perhaps there had never been a marriage