"Perhaps it's not a picture after all," he said. "You may be mistaken.
Don't you think so?"

"No," she answered. "I am not mistaken, but--."

"Don't fear that I shall speak one word," he cried as she hesitated. "I
would sooner lose my life than annoy you, to say nothing of losing my
amusement. If I can't see what is behind the hanging without doing that,
why, I'll not see it at all."

"Thank you," she said gratefully, dwelling only upon the first part of
his speech. "I was sure you would feel so."

"Yes, words and questions would be a clumsy way. I'll show you a
better." And while she looked at him wondering what he meant, he turned
from her and in an instant, bringing up a chair, had stepped upon it and
made with his penknife a line across what he judged would be the top of
the picture. Feeling along the length of this with his finger he cut a
perpendicular line from each end of it, so that the tapestry fell down
like the end of a broad ribbon, and showed that Elizabeth had not been
at fault in her supposition. He had stepped down from the chair,
replaced it, and returned to her side while she still stood in dumb
consternation. He was smiling. "There!" he said. The thing had been done
in a flash; he had scarcely glanced at the painting, until, as he spoke,
he fell back a step. Then he caught her arm.

"Look!" he cried hoarsely, "Look!"

But he need not have told her to look, she was doing it with eyes wide
open and lips parted and motionless. "I was right, you see. I had a
right to do this," he said.

She drew away from the grasp that he still laid on her arm in his
absorption. "Yes, I was right," he repeated. "Do you see?"

"No," she answered, "I understand nothing. Explain yourself. Or wait. It
is time now to call Colonel Archdale. You will explain to him this
liberty, and the meaning of this--this strange coincidence."

"Ah, ha!" he cried. "You see it? Everybody will see it; isn't it so?
Tell me," he insisted.

"I suppose so," she faltered, looking at his triumphant face and feeling
a presentiment that some evil was to fall upon the Archdale family. If
so she would have helped to bring it.

"Let us send for him," repeated Edmonson. "Or, no. Let us surprise them
all, give them an entertainment not planned by mine admirable host.
Come, let us go out into the garden, and when we return, here will be a
new face to greet us. That will be more as you wish it? I want it to be
as you wish."

"You have not