n in ink. They were Dave Darrin and a pretty girl. On the margin of
the card had been scrawled in bold letters:

"Your affair of the heart will bear close watching if you still
cherish!"

This was signed, contemptibly and untruthfully, "A Friend."

"Uh!" murmured Belle in hurt pride and loyalty. Then she said resolutely
to herself: "I will pay no attention to this. An anonymous communication
is always meant to hurt and to give a false impression."

But there was the picture before her eyes of Dave and the pretty girl in
seemingly great intimacy. So though she continued to write to the
midshipman and tried hard to make her letters sound as usual, in spite
of herself a coldness crept into them that Dave felt.

"She must have seen that pictorial weekly," thought the boy miserably.
But as Belle said nothing of this, he could not write of it.

The season was well along. Dave and Dan sent Belle Meade and Laura
Bentley invitations to one of the later spring dances.

"I wonder if she'll come or if she's tiring of me," thought Dave Darrin
bitterly.

But Belle answered, accepting the invitation for Laura and herself.

When Saturday afternoon came both midshipmen hurried to the hotel in the
town and sent up their cards. Mrs. Meade soon appeared, saying the girls
would be down shortly.

"Are they both well?" asked Dave. His tone was as one giving a
meaningless greeting, but in his heart he waited anxiously to hear what
her mother should say of Belle.

"Well, yes. But Belle has been moping around the house a great deal,
Dave, rather unlike her usual self," replied Mrs. Meade slowly.

If Mrs. Meade deplored this, Dave Darrin did not. It showed him at least
that the girl's apparent coldness was not caused by her interest in some
other young man.

But when the girls came in and Belle greeted him cordially, to be sure,
but with something of restraint, his heart sank again.

"What's the matter, Belle? Has something gone wrong?" asked Dave when
Dan was engaging the attention of Mrs. Meade and Laura.

"Nothing. Is all right with you?"

"Surely!"

"Dave, when we're alone I have something to show you. I fear you have an
enemy here."

"An enemy! Oh, no. But I shall be glad to see what you have to show me."

It was not long before, at a word from Dave, Dan took Mrs. Meade and
Laura out for a walk. It was then that Belle got the large photograph
with the two figures ringed in ink and showed it to Dave.

"Why, what does