mind.

"What does it mean, Betty Burnett, that my uncle has had nothing better
to do when he has so zealously labored up here, than to paint your
sister's face in every conceivable way?" slowly and impressively asked
Malcom, as he put still another tell-tale sketch over that on the easel.

"You do not really mean!--it can't be!--Oh!" uttered Bettina in diverse
tones and inflections as she rapidly recalled, one after another,
certain incidents.

Then there was silence in Robert Sumner's studio between these two
discoverers of his long-cherished secret.

"Malcom," at length whispered Bettina, "we must never breathe one word
about what we have found here. You must not tell Margery or your mother.
Promise me that it shall be a solemn secret between you and me."

"I promise, Lady Betty. Your behest shall be sacredly regarded," replied
Malcom with mock gravity. "But," after a little, "shall you tell
Barbara?"

"Tell Barbara? No! no! How could I tell her! Malcom, don't you know that
it is only by a chance that we have found these pictures? That, whatever
they may mean is absolutely sacred to your uncle? Perhaps they mean
nothing--nothing save that he, from an artist's stand-point, admires my
sister's face. Indeed, the more I think of it, the more I am inclined to
believe that is all," she persisted, as she saw Malcom's expressive
shrug and the comical look in his eyes as he moved them slowly along the
half-dozen sketches that were now standing in a row.