"No, I haven't gone mad," I laughed, as he put a restraining hand on my arm. "It's the key to the mystery," I added, as calmly as I could. "I'm not going to tell you--I want you to see it for yourself. Come along." He followed me down to the street without a word, though I could see how his hand trembled as he took down his hat. I myself was quivering from head to foot with excitement--with triumph. What a blind fool I had been not to suspect it long ago. Godfrey had never seen Curtiss, or he would have known the instant his eyes rested on that photograph! Luckily, the journey was not a long one, or I could not have kept the secret. "Sit there," I said, when we reached my room, and I motioned him to a chair near the table. I turned down the light and arranged my properties--let me confess at once to a secret liking for the dramatic--the unexpected. Then I turned up the light. "Now look at them," I said, and pointed to the three photographs placed side by side before him. He stared at them--at Marcia Lawrence; at Burr Curtiss, smooth-faced and girlish; at the soubrette.... I knew by the sudden deep breath he drew that he understood. There could be no mistaking. Feature for feature they would not match at all; but there was a tone, an expression, that little way of holding the head.... "Of course," he said slowly, at last. "Of course." How easily it explained Marcia Lawrence's panic, her flight--there could be no marriage, no explanation--only flight! "There's one crucial test," I said, glancing at my watch. "I'll make it this very evening." * * * * * An hour later, I was shown for the third time into the study of Dr. Schuyler at Elizabeth. He was sitting at his desk, just as I had found him once before. "Ah, Mr. Lester," he began. "Dr. Schuyler," I interrupted, "I've a photograph here which I'm very anxious for you to see. This is it--whose do you think it is?" He took it with a glance of astonishment, moved over to the table, and held it beneath the rays of the lamp. "Why," he faltered, "why--it reminds me very strongly of young Boyd Endicott, as he was when I knew him, thirty years ago." My heart leaped. "As a matter of fact, Dr. Schuyler," I said, "it's a photograph of Burr Curtiss, as he was ten years ago." He stared at me for a moment without understanding, then I saw the light of comprehension in his eyes, and he sank heavily back into his chair. "Poor woman!" he murmured hoarsely. "Poor woman!" And all the way back to New York, I was wondering which of the women he had meant. Which was the more to be pitied--the woman who, thirty years before, had been whirled away from her lover by a trick of fortune; or the younger one, innocent and unsuspecting, discovering, only at the last moment, the horrible abyss yawning at her feet? Which of the women had he meant? CHAPTER XXV The Revelation