About a week later, one evening, as John Ryder and his wife were going up from dinner, the clerk handed him a letter. The envelope was creamy and very thick, and the writing, angular and firm, betrayed the feminine hand. "This is from Miss Mont," he said to his wife, and when they reached their suite she sat eagerly upon the arm of the big chair while he opened the envelope. Together they looked over the letter that threw light on important facts which correspondence on both sides had brought to view. In one place Rose Mont wrote: "From what your wife writes me about her remembrance of her early years and from my own memory, I am confident that she is the sister Ruth whom I so dearly loved when our parents died and we children were scattered. I remember I almost cried my eyes out for her, although for the boys and for our older sister, Gertrude, I did not greatly care. "And that we should grow up to look so much alike!" Again she wrote: "Your invitation, seconded by dear Ruth, is appreciated; but I must refuse it now. I could not come to disturb your new-made happiness. Besides, Mr. Marks has contracted for a seven-week engagement in Chicago and we start for the West to-morrow. When I return to New York in the spring or early summer we will have recovered our equilibrium, I fancy, and we all, as brother and sisters, may meet with more freedom. Until we meet, God bless you! "Your sister, "ROSE MONT." "Well, I'm sorry she's taken up that stage business," Ryder said with a sigh. "And yet she has talent for it and she's a good woman. We'll give her the time of her life when she does come East. We'll be in our own home then, honey." Ruth was looking at him very closely, but he was quite unconscious of the meaning of this scrutiny. Suddenly she seized him around the neck and hugged him tightly. "Well," she murmured, "I won't be jealous of my own sister." Ryder did not hear. But he held her away from him for a moment and looked into her eyes. "Where's that chain and locket you used to wear?" he suddenly demanded. A vivid blush flooded into her throat and cheeks. "That--that's put away. Johnny White gave it to me when I was a little girl. It--it had a lock of his hair in it I thought it was _your_ hair, dearest. How silly of me!" Ryder smiled grimly. "And you used to kiss it, I'll be bound, thinking it was mine?" "How did you know?" she demanded, starting up rather petulantly. "Humph! I know a lot of things now--since I've been married. By thunder! Marriage _does_ open a man's eyes." And then he laughed and drew her down against his breast again, and they were silent for a long while. THE END