"It was in a picture-frame, between the picture and the boards at the back," he answered. "The picture dropped, and the certificates fell out." "Heaven be praised!" she breathed again. "Was there nothing else that fell out?" "Nothing else, apparently." "That was enough. Why should I want more? Oh, get them for me quickly, will you?" she cried, all animated and pink. "With these in my hand everything will be different. Even your prophecy against my marriage, which you seemed not to desire, will very likely come true." "So now I have your authority to spend the one hundred pounds?" he asked, with a smile. "Of course! Ten times as much!" "But blessed is she who has not seen, and yet has believed!" "Forgive me! I do thank and trust you!" She put out her hand. He took it, and bent some time over it. "Good-by, Miss Mordaunt." "Not for long--an hour--two?" "I am glad to have pleased you. I shall always remember how the brunette type of angels look when they thank Providence." "It is not fair to flatter when one is highly happy and deeply thankful, for then one hears everything as music. Tell me of it some other time, when I shall have a sharper answer ready. But stay--one word. It is of these certificates that Mr. Van Hupfeldt, too, must somehow have got wind. Does the girl say that any one else knows of them?" "A man named Strauss knows of them." At that name her eyelids fell as if her modesty had been hurt. "Does not Mr. Van Hupfeldt know of them?" she asked, with face averted. "I cannot tell you--yet," he answered, turning a little from her lest she caught the grim smile on his lips. "Why do you think that he may know?" "Because some days ago he wrote me a note--it is this. It can refer only to these certificates, I suppose." She handed to David his own note--"It is now a pretty certain thing that your sister was a duly wedded wife"--and David, looking at it, asked with something of a flush: "Did Mr. Van Hupfeldt say that it was he who sent you this? I see that it has no signature." "Yes, it was he," said Violet. "Ah!" murmured David, and said no more. "If it was these certificates which he had in his mind when he wrote that note," said she, "then he, too, as well as you, must have a chance of securing them from the girl. So you had better be careful that he is not beforehand with you." David looked squarely at her. "So long as you obtain them, what does it matter from whom they come?" "Of course," she replied, with her eyes on the ground, "I shall owe much gratitude to the person who hands them to me." He took a step forward, whispering: "Must I be the winner?" He received no answer from her; only, a wave of blood, a blush that flooded her being from her toes to the roots of her hair all of a sudden, suffused Violet, while he stood awaiting her reply. He put out his hand with a fine self-control. "Well, I must try," he cried lightly. She just touched his fingers with hers, and the next moment he was striding from her.