"May I take the picture?" she asked steadily.
"Do whatever you want with it," her father answered quietly.
And so she took it with her. She found a servant of whom she inquired for Avery; he had not returned so she sent for him. She went down to the deserted library and waited there with the picture of Hugh in her hand. The day had drawn to dusk. She could no longer see the picture in the fading light; she could only recall it; and now, as she recalled it, the picture itself—-not her memory of her father's manner in relation to it—gave her vague discomfort. She got up suddenly, switched on the light and, holding the picture close to it, studied it. What it was in the picture that gave her this strange uneasiness quite separate and distinct from all that she had felt when she first looked at it, she could not tell; but the more she studied it, the more troubled and frightened she grew.
The picture was a plain, unretouched print pasted upon common square cardboard without photographer's emboss or signature; and printed with the picture, were four plain, distinct numerals—8253. She did not know what they meant or if they had any real significance, but somehow now she was more afraid for Hugh than she had been. She trembled as she held the picture again to her cheek and then to her lips.
She turned; some one had come in from the hall; it was Donald. He was in riding clothes and was disheveled and dusty from leading the men on horseback through the woods. She saw at her first glance at him that his search had not yet succeeded and she threw her head back in relief. Donald seemed to have returned without meeting the servant sent for him and, seeing the light, he had looked into the library idly; but when he saw her, he approached her quickly.
"What have you there?" he demanded of her.
She flushed at the tone. "What right have you to ask?" Her instant impulse had been to conceal the picture, but that would make it seem she was ashamed of it; she held it so Donald could see it if he looked. He did look and suddenly seized the picture from her.
"Don!" she cried at him.
He stared at the picture and then up at her. "Where did you get this, Harriet?"
"Don!"