dly, Mr. Parmalee! But for the present don't you
think--just to keep people's tongues quiet, you know--had we not better
keep this little private compact to ourselves? I don't want the
gossiping servants of the house to gossip in the kitchen about you and
me."

"Just as you please. I don't care a darn for their gossiping, though.
And now about that little note. I want to see my lady before I explain
things to you, you know."

"And why? You don't intend to tell her I am to be taken into your
confidence, I suppose?"

"Not much!" said Mr. Parmalee, emphatically. "Never you mind, Sybilla.
Before you become Mrs. P., you'll know it all safe enough. I'll write
it at once."

He took a stumpy lead-pencil from his pocket, tore a leaf out of his
pocket-book, and wrote these words:

MY LADY,--You knew the picture, and I know your secret. Should like to
see you, if convenient, soon. That person is in London waiting to hear
from me.

Your most obedient,
G. W. PARMALEE.

The photographer handed the scrawl to Sybilla.

"Read it."

"Well?" she said, taking it all in at a glance.

"Give her this. She'll see me before I leave this house, or I'm much
mistaken. She's a very proud lady, this baronet's bride; but for all
that she'll obey G. W. Parmalee's orders, or he'll know the reason why."

CHAPTER XIX.

MISS SILVER PLAYS HER FIRST CARD.

It was all very well for Sir Everard Kingsland to ride his high horse
in the presence of Miss Sybilla Silver, and superbly rebuke her
suspicions of his wife, but her words had planted their sting,
nevertheless.

He loved his beautiful, imperious, gray-eyed wife with so absorbing and
intense a love that the faintest doubt of her was torture inexpressible.

"I remember it all now," he said to himself, setting his teeth; "she
was agitated at sight of that picture. She turned, with the strangest
look in her face I ever saw there, to the American, and rose abruptly
from the table immediately after. She has not been herself since; she
has not once left her room. Is she afraid of meeting that man? Is
there any secret in her life that he shares? What do I know of her
past life, save that she has been over the world with her father? Good
Heaven! if she and this man should have a secret between them, after
all!"

The cold drops actually stood on his brow at the thought. The fierce,
indomitable pride of his haughty race and the man's own inward jealousy
mad