"Yes," she briefly replied.
"How beautiful she is! She looks as you looked the evening we were——"
Helen shivered, and her white teeth came together with a snap that arrested the word on his lips.
"Whom did she marry?" he demanded, almost fiercely, after studying the picture for a minute or two.
"I shall not tell you," Helen doggedly reiterated, and unutterably thankful that Mr. Alexander's likeness was not beside the other to tell its own story. She had found it was, for some reason, beginning to curl, and she had taken it down and laid a heavy book on it only that morning. "But I will tell you this," she presently resumed: "Her husband is a man to whom any father or mother might be proud to give a daughter, and Dorothy will never know a care or sorrow which an absorbing affection and most unselfish devotion can avert."
CHAPTER XVI.
SACKCLOTH AND ASHES.
John Hungerford flushed suddenly crimson; then paled to a sickly hue at Helen's words.
Evidently her statement that Dorothy's life and happiness would be most tenderly shielded by a considerate and devoted husband aroused memories of the past that were far from pleasant. He stood silently studying the photograph for several minutes, his face showing evidence of deep inward emotion. Finally replacing it upon the mantel, he moved on, curiously observant of the handsome furniture, choice bric-a-brac, draperies, and pictures that were tastefully arranged about the room.
As he drew near a door leading into an adjoining apartment that was used as a library, he paused, and stood irresolute.