ld not have been very happy."

Her listener recalled that the speaker at one time in her life had not
considered the loss of a husband in any other light than a great
satisfaction. But he went on to explain that after his grandmother's
death, the portrait had been concealed where Elizabeth had discovered
it. "My mother knew nothing of it," he said, "but my father had seen it
before. He told me so after that day," he added, remembering that
Elizabeth had heard Colonel's denial of any knowledge of the portrait.
"He knew whom it was a picture of, I mean, and that we were not the
Sunderland Archdales, but nothing of Edmonson's rights; and he had
looked at the portrait so little that he never perceived the likeness to
Edmonson until we all did. Edmonson, you know, was in search of this
portrait. He had heard of it from his father, who passed as the child of
the old man's only son, who died in India at about the same time that
the baby and nurse came to the grandfather's. My grandmother Archdale
besought her father to take care of the child until she could send for
it, and he was better than her request. I suppose that he could not bear
to give up both his children and he hated his son-in-law. Edmonson's
father did not know his real name until after the elder Edmonson's
death. Then the nurse told him the story. But at that time he was
twenty-five; married, and established in his home, with no desire to
change, or to share his possessions. Gerald learned the truth only when
he came of age, and his capacity for getting through with money made him
think that something ought to be made out of his colonial relatives. He
had spent his own moderate fortune before he came here. He showed his
character in his way of going to work," finished Archdale,
contemptuously. "He could not believe that anybody would have honesty
enough not to defeat his claim unless he could clinch his proofs
instantly."

"It was a cowardly way of doing it," said Elizabeth slowly.

"Yes," he answered, and looked at her, wondering if he should learn what
she was thinking about, for it seemed as if she had only half finished
her sentence.

"Nothing seems to me stranger than the difference between people in the
same family," she said at last, almost more to herself than to him.
There was something so utterly impersonal in her tone that she seemed to
be setting forth a general trite observation rather than comparing
Edmonson with any of his relatives. And it wa