"I have fancied she must be like your own relations, Edmund." "Perhaps so," he replied evasively, continuing: "This girl who took the prize this evening won my admiration, darling, because she has a wonderful likeness to you in your young days, Elinor; when we were first married." "Oh, Edmund, I was never so exquisitely beautiful!" she cried, blushing like a girl. "Oh, yes, indeed; quite as beautiful as Liane Lester--and very lovely still," he answered, gazing into her eyes with the admiration of a lover, giving her all the tenderness he withheld from Roma, his unloved daughter. She nestled close to his breast, delighted at his praises, and presently she said: "It is rather a coincidence, your fancying that Miss Lester looks like me, while I imagine that her grandmother--a dreadful old creature, by the way--resembles Mrs. Jenks, the old woman who nursed me when Roma was born." Some startled questioning from her husband brought out the whole story of her visit to granny. "Of course I was mistaken in taking her for Mrs. Jenks, but the old crone needn't have been so vexed over it," she said. Edmund Clarke was startled, agitated, by what she had told him, but he did not permit her to perceive it. He thought: "What if I have stumbled on the solution of a terrible mystery? The likeness of Liane Lester to my wife is most startling, and, coupled with other circumstances surrounding her, might almost point to her being my lost daughter!" He trembled like a leaf with sudden excitement. "I must see this old woman--and to-night! I cannot bear the suspense until to-morrow!" he thought, and said to his wife artfully: "Perhaps I am selfish, keeping you from poor Roma in her distress." "I will go to her at once, poor child," she said, lifting her fair head from his breast. "And I will take a walk while I smoke," he replied, leaving her with a tender kiss. He lighted a cigar, and started eagerly for the cottage of granny, hoping to find her alone ere Liane returned from the hall. His whole soul was shaken with eager emotion from what his wife had told him about the old woman's identity. In the cool, clean September moonlight he strode along the beach, eager-hearted as a boy, in the trembling hope of finding his lost child again. What joy it would be to find her in the person of lovely Liane, who had already touched his heart with a subtle tenderness by the wonderful likeness that brought back so vividly his wife's lost youth in the days when they had first loved with that holy love that crowned their lives with lasting joy. Not one cloud had marred their happiness save the loss of their infant daughter. He had restored what happiness he could to Elinor by the substitution of a spurious child, but for himself there must ever be an aching void in his heart till the lost was found again.