Strong as were his nerves, he had to force himself to apply a knife to its brown-papered back. And then, with a queer vindictive howl of triumph, he drew forth a curiously insipid portrait of Van Hupfeldt, inscribed "To Gwen," with a date, and, folded behind it, a terrible little note, merely dated "Paris; Tuesday," which read: MY POOR GIRL--At last, then, you force the miserable truth from me. Mrs. Strauss is my wife. She is twice my age. She forced me to marry her ten years ago for her money. She is, indeed, dying, and then I can fly to you. For the sake of our boy, forgive me. HARRY. "Ah!" There was something sadly animal in David's triumph. He felt like a dog which has seized the rat after which it has been straining, and, in a minute or two, he had the grace to be ashamed of himself. Then he thought of Violet, and he broke down, crying like a child. Those tears were good for him; they brought him back to sanity and garnished the dark places of his heart. But what to do? That was more than ever the problem. He bolted and barred his door that night, and the photograph and letter lay beside his revolver under his pillow. Not forty Van Hupfeldts nor a legion of ghosts should reave him of those telling pieces of evidence! CHAPTER XIX VIOLET DECIDES Violet, waked from broken rest by the cooing of doves, had rue in her soul. She met her mother at breakfast, and the good woman, thinking her daughter not altogether in her right senses, was disposed to be somewhat snappish. So the girl was driven back on her sad imaginings, nor were they dissipated by David's two little notes. When she sent the messenger away the second time she was in a strange state of calm. Despair had numbed her: she thought persistently of her sister, and wondered if the only true rest was to be found in that dark nook of the grave. She saw a carriage depart for the railway station to bring Van Hupfeldt. In half an hour its wheels grated on the gravel of the drive, and a servant came to her room to summon her to the fateful conclave. She was on her knees, in dry-eyed prayer, and the frightened maid, who loved Miss Violet, had a little catch in her voice as she said: "You are wanted in the drawing-room, miss, and please, miss, I do hope you won't take on so. Everybody says you ought to be happy; but I"--sniff--"I know yer ain't, miss." Violet rose and kissed the girl. It was good to have such honest sympathy. In the big, cheerful salon beneath she found her mother, stiff and self-conscious, wondering what people would think if Violet persisted in her folly; Van Hupfeldt, collected and deferential, wearing a buttonhole of violets (of all flowers in creation!), and, seated gingerly on the edge of a chair, a quietly dressed young woman with "domestic servant" writ large upon her. But Dibbin, for whom Violet's eyes searched dreamily, was not there.