She did not like to think so. Her heart had gone out strangely to this man, the savior of her young life. She liked to think that he was noble, good and brave. For the villain who had betrayed her trusting young mother she had nothing in her heart but hatred, and a burning desire for revenge. Suddenly the saloon door opened softly. Mr. Stuart had eluded Lilia and returned. He came to her side and sat down again. His dark face was strangely pale still. There was a troubled look in his large, dark eyes. "You must have thought my agitation strange just now, Irene," he said. "Yes," she answered, gravely. "And--you guessed the reason?" he inquired, slowly, fixing a keen glance on her face. She raised her beautiful, troubled blue eyes steadily to his. "You recognized the pictures in my locket," she replied, touching it with her trembling hand. "My God, yes!" he answered hoarsely. "Irene, child, for the love of Heaven, tell me what this man and woman are to you." She had no answer for him. In her own heart she was saying, dumbly: "I cannot tell him. It is my mother's secret. She guarded it for sixteen years, and I must not betray her." He looked at the white, agonized face of the girl, and repeated his question: "Tell me what this man and woman are to you." "I cannot tell you, Mr. Stuart," she replied, falteringly. "You mean you will not," he said, studying her downcast face, with grave, attentive eyes. "I _cannot_," she replied. "It is a secret that belongs to others. I cannot betray confidence." A baffled look came into his troubled, marble-white face. "Do you mean to preserve an utter _incognito_ among us?" he asked. "I must," she answered, while great, trembling tears started beneath her drooping lashes. "I can say no more than what I have told you already. I am homeless, friendless, nameless!" "How old are you?" he inquired. "I was sixteen years old but a few days ago," she answered. He looked again keenly at her face, and bending forward, again looked at the beautiful, pictured face of Elaine Brooke. A shudder shook his form. "You are strangely like her--strangely like," he said. "Child, I would give much to hear you say what this beautiful woman is to you." Irene looked gravely at him, her young bosom shaken by a storm of suspicion. "Confidence invites confidence," she said, harshly. "I will tell you what this woman is to me if you tell me what she once was to you." CHAPTER XVIII. Irene's stern, abrupt question produced a startling effect upon Mr. Stuart. His face grew ashy pale, even to his lips, and he gazed suspiciously, almost angrily, at the girl's grave face. Seeing only an earnest wonder mirrored in her clear, sweet eyes, he sprang abruptly from his seat, and without replying to her question began to pace rapidly up and down the room. Her grave, troubled eyes followed him slowly up and down, while a terrible pain tore her heart.