e what are in the magazines. I'm making fairies,
father, and you know I can't find any models, so I have to make them
up."

"Put that away. I have some questions to ask you."

"What's the matter, daddy? You look as if the sky were falling." He
had seated himself on the long lounge where she had once sat and
chatted with Peter Junior. She recalled that day. It was when he
kissed her for the first time. Her cheeks flushed hotly as they always
did now when she thought of it, and her eyes were sad. She went over
and established herself at her father's side.

"What is it, daddy, dear?"

"Betty,"--he spoke sternly, as she had never heard him before,--"have
you been concealing something from your father and mother--and from
the world--for the last three years and a half?"

Her head drooped, the red left her cheeks, and she turned white to the
lips. She drew away from her father and clasped her hands in her lap,
tightly. She was praying for strength to tell the truth. Ah, could
she do it? Could she do it! And perhaps cause Richard's condemnation?
Had they found him?--that father should ask such a question now, after
so long a time?

"Why do you ask me such a question, father?"

"Tell me the truth, child."

"Father! I--I--can't," and her voice died away to a whisper.

"You can and you must, Betty."

She rose and stood trembling before him with clinched hands. "What has
happened? Tell me. It is not fair to ask me such a question unless you
tell me why." Then she dropped upon her knees and hid her face against
his sleeve. "If you don't tell me what has happened, I will never
speak again. I will be dumb, even if they kill me."

He put his arm tenderly about the trembling little form, and the act
brought the tears and he thought her softened. He knew, as Mary had
often said, that "Betty could not be driven, but might be led."

"Tell father all about it, little daughter." But she did not open her
lips. He waited patiently, then asked again, kindly and persistently,
"What have you been hiding, Betty?" but she only sobbed on. "Betty, if
you do not tell me now and here, you will be taken into court and made
to tell all you know before all the world! You will be proven to have
been untrue to the man you were to marry and who loved you, and to
have been shielding his murderer."

"Then it is Richard. They have found him?" She shrank away from her
father and her sobs ceased. "It has come at last. Father--if--if--I
had--been