"When I found the locket lying on the ground the lid was open. I saw the two faces it held," he said, in a strange, hesitating voice. "Well?" she repeated, gravely, while a flush rose over her fair face. "They--were not strange to me," he replied; "I was startled when I saw whose were the faces you wore always over your heart. Miss Berlin, will you tell me what that man and woman are to you?" He saw her start and shiver--saw the warm crimson flash into her face, then recede again, leaving it deathly pale and cold. She clasped her hands over the locket, pressing it tightly to her beating heart, while she answered hoarsely and with downcast eyes: "I cannot tell you, Mr. Revington; it is a secret, and that secret belongs to another. I have no right to reveal it." CHAPTER XXIV. Julius Revington stood looking in silence at the beautiful, agitated girl as she repeated, sadly: "The secret belongs to another. I have no right to reveal it." "Is it a secret of shame?" Julius Revington asked, slowly. Irene started, and flashed a look of anger upon him through her tear-wet lashes. "You are impertinent," she said, sharply; "you have no right to seek to penetrate the secret of my past!" "I have the same right as the physician who probes the wound to heal it," he replied, coolly. "You!--you can heal no wound of mine!" she flashed, almost disdainfully. "You think so, but you are wrong," said Julius Revington. "Sit down, Miss Berlin, I have much to say to you. It is for your own good that you should listen to it." The earnestness of his tone impressed Irene against her will. She sat down slowly on the soft, green grass, still with a mutinous pout on her lips, and her eyes turned coldly away from him. Mr. Revington seated himself also, and glanced carefully around, to make sure that no one was in hearing distance of himself and his fair companion. "I see that you have no faith in my power of making an interesting communication to you," he said, addressing himself to Irene. "No, I cannot imagine your telling me anything I should like to hear," she retorted, coldly. An angry light flared into the man's dark eyes a moment, but he bit his lip to keep back a sharp rejoinder. Her willfulness, her pretty petulances, had an actual fascination for him. "Such an answer from any one but you, Miss Berlin, would be actual rudeness," he said, lightly. "But whether frowning or smiling you are ever charming to me. You remind me of nothing so much as one of Tennyson's heroines, 'a rosebud set with little willful thorns.'" She answered not a word. Her fair face was averted, and her blue eyes gazed at the silvery Arno softly gliding past. "You have been a beautiful, enchanting mystery to me ever since I met you," he continued, slowly. "I have wondered whence you came and to whom you belonged, but with no hope of unsealing your beautiful lips or the secret they held so close. But chance--or shall I call it fate?--has solved the mystery for me."