Thanks to the faithful Melinda, Mr. Hamlin did know it perfectly. It was a pencil sketch of Mrs. Rivers's youthfully erring sister. But he only said he thought he recognized a likeness to some one he had seen in Sacramento.
The deacon's eye brightened. “Perhaps the same one—perhaps,” he added in a submissive and significant tone “a—er—painful story.”
“Rather—to him,” observed Hamlin quietly.
“How?—I—er—don't understand,” said Deacon Turner.
“Well, the portrait looks like a lady I knew in Sacramento who had been in some trouble when she was a silly girl, but had got over it quietly. She was, however, troubled a good deal by some mean hound who was every now and then raking up the story wherever she went. Well, one of her friends—I might have been among them, I don't exactly remember just now—challenged him, but although he had no conscientious convictions about slandering a woman, he had some about being shot for it, and declined. The consequence was he was cowhided once in the street, and the second time tarred and feathered and ridden on a rail out of town. That, I suppose, was what you meant by your 'painful story.' But is this the woman?”
“No, no,” said the deacon hurriedly, with a white face, “you have quite misunderstood.”
“But whose is this portrait?” persisted Jack.
“I believe that—I don't know exactly—but I think it is a sister of Mrs. Rivers's,” stammered the deacon.
“Then, of course, it isn't the same woman,” said Jack in simulated indignation.
“Certainly—of course not,” returned the deacon.