The subtle likeness between Irene and Lilia was not stronger than that which existed between Irene and Mr. Stuart. They might have passed for father and daughter. He looked up and arrested her gaze fixed upon his face in wonder and perplexity. He smiled. "On what weighty subject are you musing so deeply, Mrs. Leslie?" he inquired. "If you will come and walk with me, I will tell you," she replied, lightly. "Nothing would give me more pleasure," he answered gallantly. CHAPTER XXX. They went down the wide balcony steps together, leaving the two girls alone. Mrs. Leslie chose a favorite walk along the river bank, and by chance they sat down on the same pretty garden seat where Irene had rested that morning while she gave her promise to be Julius Revington's wife. Mr. Stuart looked at his friend with a smile on his dark, handsome face. "Now will you give me the benefit of your thoughts?" he said. "If you will promise not to laugh--not to call me fanciful," she answered. "On my honor," he replied, placing his hand on his heart, and bowing with mock gravity. She was silent a moment, feeling a momentary embarrassment over her promise. He would think her fanciful certainly, perhaps be displeased. "I am growing very curious," he observed. "You need not be---- it is nothing of any consequence," she said. "It is only that before you came out on the balcony I was startled by observing the vivid likeness that exists between Lilia and Irene. They are like enough to be sisters. And when you came upon the scene my wonder only grew. Irene is enough like you to be your daughter." She need not have been afraid that he would laugh at her--that he would think her fanciful. He started and gazed at her with wide, dark eyes and ashen, parted lips. "Like Lilia! like me!" he repeated, strangely. "Yes," she answered. "Enough like Lilia to be her sister, enough like you to be your child." "Before God, I believe that she is!" he answered, startlingly. She gazed at him in wonder. "I do not understand you," she said, wondering if her old friend had gone mad. But he reiterated in tones of suppressed passion: "I believe that she is my own child. I have loved her since the first hour I looked on her beautiful face, so like that of the fair, cold woman who broke my heart! I have yearned to hold her in my arms, to kiss her fair face, and claim her for my own daughter, the pledge of a love that for a little while was as pure, as true, as beautiful as Heaven! It was the voice of nature speaking in my heart, claiming its own in tones that would not be stilled. Oh, Elaine, Elaine, fairest, dearest, cruelest of women!" He bowed his head on his hands, and his strong form shook with great, smothered sobs. Mrs. Leslie gazed at him in wonder and sympathy. What hidden mystery, what aching sorrow had her chance words evoked from the buried past? It was terrible to witness the shuddering emotion of this brave, strong man.