"Will you permit me to look at the picture, Miss—"
"No, no; I dare not trust it out of my hands. I promised him, you know, and I must not disappoint Hubert, for he is very exacting. Hark!"
The girl secreted her prize, and lifted a warning hand.
"Don't you hear his step? It is Hubert—dear, dear Hubert—come back to comfort his poor Sybil after these long, weary years."
A low, startling laugh fell from her lips at the last. She darted across the floor, and flung the door wide, peering out into the darkness.
A solemn, awful silence followed, then the door was sharply closed, and the queerly acting girl faced Dyke Darrel once more. She looked weirdly beautiful, with a mass of golden hair falling below her taper waist, her face white as the winter's snow, almost too white for the living.
So she stood now; the dancing light from the fire fell full on her countenance, revealing it for the first time plainly to the gaze of the detective.
A low, stunned cry escaped from his lips.
"My God! It is Sibyl Osborne, the Burlington Captain's daughter."
A low laugh fell from the girl's lips.