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 "Did you pose for this man's picture?"

"Yes, sir, and"

A fierce glance from the artist, Willard Frost, kept her from ending the sentence.

"D you! I'll finish you."

"Wait!" cried a firm, but sweet voice. Willard Frost stepped back in dismay. The doorway framed the form and beautiful, indignant face of Cherokee Milburn.

She had seen her maid, dressed in her clothes, join Marrion in the street and had followed them. She could not doubt Marrion Latham's honor, and her woman's instinct—that almost unerring guide which God has bestowed upon the sex—told her to follow.

One glance at the assembled party, and another at the empty frame and the canvas that lay beside it, and she comprehended the situation.

"I know you, Willard Frost," she said, with a calmness that surprised herself as well as all present.

"I trust you have a good opinion of me," sneered the baffled scoundrel.

"I have doubted you," she went on, not heeding the interruption, "for two years, but I never thought you capable of such as this." She paused and pointed to the canvas upon the floor.