lled away in a trail of
steam to the flap of the tent. Covering her face with her hands, Aunt
Agatha burst hysterically into a shower of tears.

Diane started.

"Aunt Agatha," she exclaimed, "what is it? For heaven's sake, don't
sob and tremble so."

"I--I might have known it!" sobbed Aunt Agatha, wringing her plump
hands in genuine distress. "I might have guessed they would tell you
that, though how in the world they found it out is beyond me. If I'd
only listened instead of worrying about my knees and the revolver, and
staring so. And you in the Everglades--where your father went to hunt
alligators. Oh, Diane, Diane, not a single night could I sleep--and
it's not to be wondered at that I was scared. And the dance you did
for Nathalie Fowler and me--and the costume that night at Sherrill's.
I was fairly sick! I knew it would come out--though how could I
foresee that the Baron and Mr. Poynter and the Prince would know? I--I
told your grandfather so years ago, but he pledged me on his
deathbed--and your father was wild and clever like Carl and singular in
his notions. I'll never forget your grandfather's face when you ran
away into the forest to sleep as a child. He was white and sick and
muttered something about atavism. It--it was the Indian blood--"

Diane caught her aunt's trembling arm in a grip that hurt cruelly.

"Aunt Agatha," she said, catching her breath sharply, "you must not
talk so wildly. Say it plainer!"

But Aunt Agatha tranquil was incoherent.

Aunt Agatha frightened and hysterical was utterly beyond control.

"And very beautiful too," she sobbed. "And Norman, poor fellow, was
quite mad about her--for all she was an Indian girl--though her father
was white and a Spaniard, I will say that for her. Not even so dark as
you are, Diane, and shy and lovely enough to turn any man's head--much
less your father's--though your grandfather stormed and threatened to
kill them both and only for Grant he would have. And when an Indian
from the Everglades told Norman that--that she really hadn't been
married before but just a--mother like Carl's mother, my dear--"

But Diane was gone, stumbling headlong from the tent. Aunt Agatha was
to remember her white agonized face for many a day.

CHAPTER XLVI

IN THE FOREST

With the darkening of the night a wind sprang up over the bleak, black
expanse of lake and swept with a sigh through the forest on the shore.
It was a wind from the east