"Mrs. Leslie, I want to ask you one question," said Guy Kenmore.

They two were walking in the wide, beautiful villa-garden among the roses and lilies and beautiful crimson flowers drooping from grand white marble vases. The sun shone on the beautiful terraced walks, on the sparkling fountains, and the glistening green leaves and golden fruit of the orange and lemon trees, the air perfumed with the fragrance of countless flowers.

Mrs. Leslie was walking by her friend's side looking thoughtfully down at the drifts of pink myrtle blossoms that blew across the path beneath her dainty feet. She looked up with a smile, and answered:

"As many as you please, Mr. Kenmore."

"Thank you," he replied, but for a moment he was silent over the momentous question that hovered on his lips. Looking at him curiously she saw that he was very pale and grave, with a fathomless sadness in the dark brown eyes usually so bright and laughing.

"It must be a very important question, you look so grave over it," she said.

"It is important," he replied, and then he went on, meditatively. "You told me, I believe, Mrs. Leslie, that Mr. Stuart's yacht left Richmond on the tenth of June?"

"Yes," she replied.

"The question I have to ask you is this: Did the yacht go steadily on that day and night, or did she stop at any landing on the Bay?"

Mrs. Leslie pursed up her pretty lips, and reflected.

"Let me see," she said. "Ah, yes, I remember. We did stop that night, about nine o'clock, at a landing in the Bay. It was at a place called Brooke's Wharf, and was noted for the fine fruit to be obtained there. I think it was at Mr. Revington's instance we stopped, and Mr. Stuart obtained a supply of the most luscious fruit."

Outwardly calm and composed, Guy Kenmore inwardly trembled with excitement. Was he about to find a clew to Ronald Brooke's slayer?

"Did anyone leave the yacht and go on shore?" he inquired.

"Oh, yes, we all did," said Mrs. Leslie, readily enough. "I mean all except the captain and crew. It was the most beautiful night I ever saw, I think. These Italian nights are not lovelier. We went on shore, and rambled about in the moonlight. I remember the night perfectly."

Ah! did he not, too, he groaned, silently, to himself. How vividly it all rushed over him. His careless visit to Bertha Brooke, from which so much had arisen. Memory recalled the lovely, willful girl, who had carried him off to the hall perforce that night, and he thought, with a softened tenderness, of the childish spite and self-will that had so vexed him then. Poor little Irene! she had suffered enough from Bertha's rage to atone for her willfulness. A feeling of pity and remorse mingled with the love he bore his hapless child-wife.

"Poor child! I was vexed and annoyed when I first found out the truth that we were legally married that night. It came upon me so suddenly, and I showed my feelings too plainly, and she—she was equally averse to having me for a husband. But, better, far better for her, if she had taken me at my word when I offered to make the best of my sad mistake than to have given her heart to that dandy jackanapes," he concluded, bitterly, for he had gauged the depth of Julius Revington at first sight, and the conspiracy he had overheard last night had filled him with horror and contempt for the traitor.

"To think that, she—my own beautiful and beloved wife—should turn coldly from me to lavish her precious love on a thing like that," he thought, jealously.

Mr. Kenmore, in his indolent way, though unconsciously to himself, had possessed some little complacent conceit of himself. His mirror had told him he was noble-looking and handsome, and women's eyes had repeated it. His progress through society had been a complete ovation to his pride and his vanity. Men had honored him for his manliness as much as for his great wealth, and women had angled for him as a most unexceptionable parti. But the complacent conceit that the world had fostered in him for years, had received a terrible blow from Irene's indifference and her palpable preference for the weakly-handsome, guitar-playing and tenor-singing Julius Revington.

"A compound of the dandy and the villain—a man who can plan behind her back to rob her of the knowledge of her honorable name, who cares nothing for the grief and shame of her wronged mother! To think that she should love him! And most probably she hates me for having re-appeared when she believed me dead. I have a most disagreeable task before me, for I must prove to her the unworthiness of the villain on whom she has set her heart," he mused, gravely.

"Are you through with your questioning?" inquired Mrs. Leslie, noting his pre-occupied silence.

"Yes," he replied, adding, with a slight smile: "Perhaps you would like to ask me some questions now."

"Yes, I would," she smiled, with engaging frankness.

"I am ready to reply to you," he answered, cordially.

"Perhaps I shall startle you," she said; "I am going to ask you a leading question, as a lawyer would say. You must remember that I give you carte blanche not to answer it unless you wish."

"Thank you for the permission," he said. "Let me hear it."

She looked at him with an odd gleam in her bright, kindly eyes.

"It is this," she said. "I believe that you and Irene Berlin, my protege, have met before last night. Am I right?"

He looked at her with a curious, intent gaze.

"Mrs. Leslie," he said, "I can better answer that question if you will tell me whether I may count on your silence and friendship in the strange dilemma in which I find myself placed."

She put out her hand to him impulsively.

"No one can say that Laura Leslie ever failed them in the hour of trouble," she said, gravely. "You may count on my silence and my truest friendship if it can avail you."

He pressed her hand, gratefully. "It will be an incalculable benefit to me," he said. "Perhaps you can help me and advise me."

"I will do both if I can," replied the charming widow.

"Then I shall tell you my secret," he replied. "Mrs. Leslie, it was not mere chance as I pretended that brought me here last night. I have followed Clarence Stuart across the ocean on a self-appointed mission to right the wrongs of the innocent and bring the guilty to justice."

Looking at his grave, agitated face, she started and uttered a cry of comprehension.

"You come from Elaine Brooke—— she lives!" she cried.

He started in his turn.

"What do you know?" he cried.

"No matter—— I must hear your story first," she said. "And you have not answered my leading question yet."

"I will tell you my story, and then you may be able to answer it for yourself," he said.

They sought a beautiful, secluded spot where they were not likely to be interrupted or overheard, and Guy Kenmore confided to her sympathizing ears the story of that fatal tenth of June, when old Ronald Brooke had met his death and Irene Brooke had become his wife.

The lady listened with eager, breathless interest, with parted lips and shining eyes, and color that varied from white to red and red to white.

When he had finished he looked at her with something like a smile in his dark-brown eyes.

"Mrs. Leslie, I have given you my confidence now. Perhaps you can answer your own question."

She laughed, merrily.

"I can put two and two together as cleverly as any woman, I think," she replied. "And you have made this case quite clear. My pretty Irene is your wife."

"Yes," he replied. "And she is the daughter of Clarence Stuart."

"That is quite true," she answered. "I have suspected it before, now I am assured of the fact. No one will rejoice more over it than will Clarence Stuart, himself."

"I do not understand you," he replied, in a puzzled tone.

Mrs. Leslie found that she had a confidence to make too. She told him Mr. Stuart's sorrowful story, and he in turn related the conversation he had heard the night before. Many things were made clear to both by the confidence thus reposed in each other.

"It is as I supposed," Guy Kenmore said. "Clarence Stuart and his wife were foully deceived and separated by the machinations of old Mr. Stuart."

"And the whole secret of it lies in the possession of Julius Revington, and the proud usurper of Elaine Brooke's name and rights," added Mrs. Leslie.

"More than that," said he, with a shudder, "the death of old Ronald Brooke lies between those two."

She was silent a few moments, gravely reviewing the case. It was a baffling one, she confessed to herself, with a sigh.

"What shall we do?" she asked him, at last. "Shall we take Mr. Stuart and Irene into our confidence?"

"Not yet," he replied, thoughtfully. "Let us deal with Julius Revington first. We must study out a plan to bring that villain to confession."