against the closed portals. Within,
the bailiffs fought with the excited crowd, and held the doors against
the panic without.

Over the prostrate form of Ames the physicians worked with feverish
energy, but shook their heads.

In the adjoining ante-room, whither she had been half carried, half
dragged by Hitt when Ames fell, sat Carmen, clasped in the Beaubien's
arms, stunned, bewildered, and speechless. Hitt stood guard at the
door; and Miss Wall and Jude tiptoed about with bated breath, unable
to take their eyes from the girl.

In the court room without, Haynerd held the little locket, and plied
Monsignor Lafelle with his incoherent questions. The excited editor's
brain was afire; but of one thing he was well assured, the Express
would bring out an extra that night that would scoop its rivals clean
to the bone!

In a few minutes the bailiffs fought the mob back from the doors and
admitted a man, a photographer, who had been sent out to procure
chemicals in the hope that the portrait of the man in the locket might
be cleaned. Ten minutes later the features of J. Wilton Ames stood
forth clearly beside those of the wife of his youth. The picture
showed him younger in appearance, to be sure, but the likeness was
unmistakable.

"Lord! Lord! Monsignor, but you are slow! Come to the point quickly!
We must go to press within an hour!" wailed Haynerd, shaking the
churchman's arm in his excitement.

"But, what more?" cried Lafelle. "I saw the portrait in the Royal
Gallery, years ago, in Madrid. It impressed me. I could not forget the
sad, sweet face. I saw it again in the stained-glass window in the
Ames yacht. I became suspicious. I inquired when I returned to Spain.
There was much whispering, much shaking of heads, but little
information. But this I know: the queen, the great Isabella, had a
lover, a wonderful tenor, Marfori, Marquis de Loja. And one day a babe
was taken quietly to a little cottage in the Granada hills. Rumor said
that it was an Infanta, and that the tenor was its father. Who knew?
One man, perhaps: old Rafael de Rincon. But Rome suddenly recalled
him from Isabella's court, and after that he was very quiet."

"But, Ames?" persisted Haynerd.

Lafelle shrugged his shoulders. "Mr. Ames," he said, "traveled much in
Europe. He went often to Spain. He bought a vineyard in Granada--the
one from which he still procures his wine. And there--who knows?--he
met the Infanta. But probably neither he nor she gue