She noiselessly slipped into the living room and returned almost instantly with a substantially bound book in her hands. She sat down beside me at the table and opened the book.
"I couldn't live without this book," she said extravagantly. "In it I have all sorts of treasured clippings and jottings. The things I need most I have pasted in. The chafing dish recipes are in an envelope. I just happened to have them along."
She was turning the pages as she spoke. On one page, which she passed by more hurriedly than the others, were a number of Kodak pictures. I caught a flash of one which made my heart beat more quickly. Surely I had a print from the same negative in my trunk.
The tiny picture was a photograph of Jack Bickett or I was very much mistaken.
What was it doing in the scrap book of Miss Sonnot?
I put an unsteady hand out to prevent her turning the page.
It was Jack Bickett's photograph. I schooled my voice to a sort of careless surprise:
"Why! Isn't this Jack Bickett?"
She started perceptibly. "Yes. Do you know him?"
"He is the nearest relative I have," I returned quickly, "a distant cousin, but brought up as my brother."