Then, as if compelled by some magnetic influence, her eyes were drawn toward the no less statue-like man standing by that never-to-be forgotten picture on the easel.
Their gaze met, and each read in that one brief look the conviction that made one heart bound with joy, the other to sink with despair—each knew that the beautiful girl, standing so wonderingly beside that stately woman, was the child that had been born to them in the pretty Italian villa hard by the old Roman wall which Gerald Goddard had so faithfully reproduced upon canvas.
CHAPTER XXXV.
"THAT MAN MY FATHER!"
Isabel Stewart was the first to recover herself, when, gently linking her arm within Edith's, she whispered, softly:
"Come with me, dear; I would like to see you alone for a few minutes."
She led her unresistingly from the room, across the hall, to a small reception-room, when, closing the door to keep out intruders, she turned and laid both her trembling hands upon the girl's shoulders.
"Tell me," she said, looking wistfully into her wondering eyes, "are you the daughter of Albert and Edith Allandale?"
"Yes."