chmaking in that direction panned out exactly as she
wished.

All is well with us,--pleasant and peaceful, and homelike,--and yet--

I look at a miniature that lies on the table before me, and my mind
drifts back to the unforgettable past. I am far away from Pencarrow,
when--some one comes behind my chair; a pair of soft hands are laid over
my eyes.

"Dreaming or working,--which?" laughs Anne.

I take the hands in mine, and draw her down till she has her chin on my
shoulder, her soft cheek against my face.

The dusk is falling, but through it she sees the glint of the diamonds
on the table,--and pulls her hands away.

"You have been thinking of those dreadful days in Russia again!" she
says reproachfully, with a queer little catch in her voice. "Why don't
you forget them altogether, Maurice? Let me put this in the drawer. I
hate to look at it,--to see you looking at it!"

She picks up the miniature, gently enough, slips it into a drawer, and
turns the key.

"I--I know it's horrid of me, darling, but I can't help it," she
whispers, kneeling beside me, her fair face upturned,--a face crowned
once more with a wealth of bright hair, which she dresses in a different
way now, and I'm glad of that. It makes her look less like her dead
sister.

[Illustration: _Some one comes behind my chair._ Page 354]

"I know how--she--suffered, and--and I'm not bitter against her,
really," she continues rapidly. "But when I think of all we had to
suffer because of her, I--I can't quite forgive her, or--or forget that
you loved her once; though you thought you were loving me all the time!"

"I did love you all the time, sweetheart," I assure her, and that is
true; but it is true also that I still love that dead woman as I loved
her in life; not as I love Anne, my wife, but as the page loved the
queen.

I shall never tell that to Anne, though. She would not understand.

THE END

_Mr. Oppenheim's Latest Novel_

THE ILLUSTRIOUS
PRINCE

_By_ E. PHILLIPS OPPENHEIM

Illustrated by Will Foster. Cloth. $1.50

Mr. Oppenheim's new story is a narrative of mystery and international
intrigue that carries the reader breathless from page to page. It is the
tale of the secret and world-startling methods employed by the Emperor
of Japan through Prince Maiyo, his close kinsman, to ascertain the real
reasons for the around-the-world cruise of the American fleet. The
American Ambassador in London and the