him, Leonard’s eyes rested carelessly upon her face. She was not a beauty, but the face was full of interest. Tall and regal in figure, she had a pale, colorless complexion, lighted up by deep-gray eyes. Her hair was golden-brown. Somehow, as her slender hands fluttered in and out among the silver breakfast service, Leonard felt a thrill of interest in his mother’s companion which he had never felt before.

“Miss Glyndon,” he began, abruptly, “are you familiar with Captain Venners’ handwriting?”

A swift crimson flushed her pale cheek, her head drooped, and her eyes studied the pattern of the pretty green-and-white carpet at her feet.

[Pg 67]

[Pg 67]

“I? Yes, I believe that I know it very well. Why do you ask, Mr. Yorke?”

Leonard’s face grew stern.

“Because I have found a poem which I think he wrote,” he returned, slowly—“a poem dropped upon the floor of the library at The Oaks by Violet Arleigh, the woman I love. Will you look at it, Miss Glyndon? Perhaps you can settle the question. For my part, I am confident that Will Venners wrote it.”

He had drawn the unfortunate poem from his pocket as he spoke—poor Will’s labor of love, which was destined to reach the one for whom it had been intended at last, but not in the way that he had expected, nor the results which truth compels us to record. Jessie Glyndon drew back a little, and her face was very pale.

“No, Mr. Yorke, I don’t care to see it,” she was beginning; but something in Leonard’s swift glance of surprise stung her woman’s pride, and she took the poem from his hand.

Slowly she read it, and as she read it over with the belief that it was written for Violet Arleigh—that the sweet, tender words were meant for another woman, a stern, cold look settled down upon Jessie’s face, and her heart grew hard as a stone toward dark-eyed Will. When she reached the lines:

[Pg 68]

[Pg 68]

she laid the poem 

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