s tucked into a
fold of the leather, and no sense of either delicacy or honor prevented
her making use of her opportunity for gratifying her curiosity regarding
the young wife, without the necessity of asking questions.

Accordingly, she boldly and unhesitatingly unlocked the portfolio, and
began examining its contents.

These proved to be mostly business papers and legal documents, with some
letters directed to a name that she had never heard before. She would have
liked to read them, but she feared being interrupted while doing so, and
she of course had no wish to have her brother know she was prying thus
into his affairs so she laid them back in their place, resolving at some
future time to examine them more thoroughly. But there was one envelope
among them of much fresher appearance than the others, and with no address
upon it, although it contained a document of some kind.

Lady Linton slipped it out, and, unfolding it, found it to be the marriage
certificate of her brother and his wife.

She was astonished to find that the ceremony had occurred in some place in
Nevada, remote from any city or town--a little settlement of which she had
never heard--and as she read further, her eyes grew wide with astonishment
and her face dark with anger.

"He wrote us that her name was Virginia Abbot," she cried, indignantly, a
crimson flush mounting to her brow, "and here it is given as Virginia--"

A step sounded outside the door in the hall just then, and her ladyship
paused, affrighted, to listen, that last name unspoken on her lips.

But it proved to be only a servant passing on some duty, and she went on
with her investigations.

"There is some inexplicable mystery about this thing," she murmured. "The
name is the same as that on those letters, and I am sure he has deceived
us shamefully. He said that she was the daughter of a once wealthy
Californian, but it seems that they were not in California at all. There
must have been some reason for their burying themselves in that isolated
place, and--<i>I will yet find out what it was</i>!"

She returned the certificate to the envelope, and put back the papers in
their proper places.

All at once her face lighted.

"Sara was going directly to San Francisco. I will write her to look this
thing up. I will have that girl's secret before she is a month older, and
then we will <i>see</i> whether she comes here to Heathdale to queen it over
us."

She resumed her work, but