Look, here is her portrait." Stella Croyle drew out from her bosom a locket which hung night and day against her heart, and showed it to Joan across the table.

"But I don't know whether she is little any more.
She is thirteen now." Joan gazed at the painted miniature of a lovely child with the eyes and the hair of Stella Croyle.
"And you lost her altogether ?" she asked with a rising pity.
"Not at first," answered Stella.

"I was allowed by the Court to have her with me for one month in every year.

And I lived the other eleven months for the one, the wonderful one." Stella's face softened indescribably.

The memory of her child did for her what all her passion for Harry Luttrell could not do.