atly folded dress, wide collar,
brooch and faded roses that lay beneath. "Mrs. Daniels assures us these
articles belonged to the sewing-woman Emily; were brought here by her.
Dare you say they are not the ones reproduced in the portrait below?"

Mr. Blake uttering a cry sank on his knees before the drawer. "My God!
My God!" was his only reply, "what are these?" Suddenly he rose, his
whole form quivering, his eyes burning. "Where is Mrs. Daniels?" he
cried, hastily advancing and pulling the bell. "I must see her at once.
Send the house-keeper here," he ordered as Fanny smiling demurely made
her appearance at the door.

"Mrs. Daniels is out," returned the girl, "went out as soon as ever you
got up from dinner, sir."

"Gone out at this hour?"

"Yes sir; she goes out very often nowadays, sir."

Her master frowned. "Send her to me as soon as she returns," he
commanded, and dismissed the girl.

"I don't know what to make of this," he now said in a strange tone,
approaching again the touching contents of that open bureau drawer with
a look in which longing and doubt seemed in some way to be strangely
commingled. "I cannot explain the presence of these articles in this
room; but if you will come below I will see what I can do to make other
matters intelligible to you. Disagreeable as it is for me to take anyone
into my confidence, affairs have gone too far for me to hope any longer
to preserve secrecy as to my private concerns."

CHAPTER XI. LUTTRA

"Gentlemen," said he as he ushered us once more into his studio, "you
have presumed, and not without reason I should say, to infer that the
original of this portrait and the woman who has so long occupied the
position of sewing-woman in my house, are one and the same. You will no
longer retain that opinion when I inform you that this picture, strange
as it may appear to you, is the likeness of my wife."

"Wife!" We both were astonished as I take it, but it was my voice which
spoke. "We were ignorant you ever had a wife."

"No doubt," continued our host smiling bitterly, "that at least has
evaded the knowledge even of the detectives." Then with a return to
his naturally courteous manner, "She was never acknowledged by me as my
wife, nor have we ever lived together, but if priestly benediction can
make a man and woman one, that woman as you see her there is my lawful
wife."

Rising, he softly turned the lovely, potent face back to the wall,
leaving us once more con