Madeline having left the morning-room, accompanied by the too observant Professor, Lucian saw at once his opportunity for a few words with Cora. Without too great an appearance of haste, he moved across the room, pausing before the fire, in front of which Miss Arthur was seated, and addressing to her a few careless words. Then he glanced at Percy, who sat at the most remote corner of the room, assuming to be much interested in some geological specimens in a little cabinet.

Cora divined his intention. She knew, too, that this was the very best place for an interview, which she desired to make a brief one, being somewhat afraid of committing herself if she allowed him to ask too many questions. So she moved over to the window, and seated herself in a low chair.

She had decided upon her own present course of action. She would play her part well while she remained at Oakley, and she would escape from it as soon as she had succeeded in blinding the eyes of her jailers, for she mentally acknowledged them as such.

When Davlin at length crossed the room, and dropped carelessly down in the chair at her side, she lifted her eyes to his, and said, inquiringly: "Well?"

He looked at her keenly for a moment. Then, not to lose any time by useless words, came straight at the point.

"Time's precious, Co. We can't attract attention by a long dialogue, and yet we must talk things over. When can I find you alone?"

"Not at all for a day or two."

"Why not?" elevating his eyebrows.

Cora rested her head upon her hand in such a way as to conceal from those at the opposite end of the room, the expression of her face, and said:

"Because I want to be sure that we can talk without being observed. Miss Payne seems very friendly, and has given me her maid because, she says, an invalid needs waiting on, and she sleeps in my dressing-room. I don't want to excite suspicion by sending her away, in order to admit you, and—I don't see that there is much to be said."

Lucian seemed weighing her words for a moment. Then he asked: "What do you make of Miss Payne?"

"What do you make of her?" she retorted, quickly.

"Nothing, as yet."

"No more do I."

Another brief silence, and then he asked: "Do you think there is any immediate danger—for us?"

"As how?"

"From him: Arthur."

Now came Cora's grand coup. She felt pretty sure that Lucian knew of her interview with Madeline, and believed that she would be telling him no news when she said:

"Listen! She went with me to my room last night, and she asked a good many questions about him. And I am sure of this: she is no friend to him, and if she sees no reason for suspecting any of us, she won't trouble herself about him. She told me that she ran away from home because she had been so oppressed by him, and that his attempt to marry her off, in order to put money in his own pocket, was only one among many of the things she had endured at his hands. Of one thing I am sure: the old man may be a stumbling-block to us, but he is an object of positive hatred to her."

Cora uttered this combination of truth and falsehood without the least compunction. If she could have warned him of the danger hanging over them without jeopardizing herself, she would have done so. But that, she knew, was impossible.

He had planned this "game" which now bade fair to be such an utter failure, and if anyone must suffer, why, let it be him. And then, too, she reasoned, she had not gathered from the words of Madeline that she suspected Mr. Davlin of duplicity of any kind. As for the Professor, Cora cared little what became of him. She could gain nothing and might, doubtless would, lose much by warning him.

Lastly, Cora assured herself that were their positions reversed, and Lucian the one who saw that his own safety lay in leaving her to her fate, he would not scruple to make her his scapegoat. And in this she was quite right.

Again the man seemed to puzzle over some knotty, mental question. Then he arose, and leaning against the window frame in a favorite attitude, glanced across at Percy and the spinster as he asked, slowly: "Did she say anything about me?"

Cora looked up in genuine surprise. "About you? No; why should she?"

"I mean," he said, "did she say anything to cause you to think that she suspected us?"

"No," shortly; "why should she? She never saw either of us until yesterday."

"What do you think brought her back here just now?"

"It's easy enough to see why she came back. She has heard of the insanity of Mr. Arthur, and has come, as she said, to take possession of her own."

Another pause; then Cora said: "Is the Professor 'up' to anything new?"

"No."

"Then don't let him take the alarm. It would hurt us. We can't run now, and I don't think we have much to fear. We will lose the money—that's all."

Lucian looked out upon the evergreens and graveled walks of Oakley, and said, under his breath: "Will we?"

Then he turned upon his heel and sauntered out of the room.

The question that was then uppermost in his mind, the question that had been since the first shock of her reappearance had given him time to think, was, why had Madeline returned to Oakley?

Was it, as she alleged, because she had changed her mind, and wanted to be mistress of her own? Or was it because he was there? If he could convince himself that the latter reason was the true one, then he would know how to act.

She had kept herself informed of affairs at Oakley. Then she must have known of the fact that the so-called brother of John Arthur's wife was Lucian Davlin. She must have known that. Of course she knew it. Did not her manner on the evening of her arrival prove that? Not for one instant did she lose her self-possession. Had his presence been unexpected, she could hardly have restrained every sign of emotion, of recognition. Clearly, she was prepared for their meeting.

Ah! now he was getting at things. If she came to Oakley, knowing him to be established there as a member of the family, she came expecting to meet him. She was not afraid of him, then. She was not averse to meeting him. Perhaps—he began to think it highly probable—she came solely to meet him. If so, did she come for love, or—for revenge?

If she came for revenge why did she not denounce him? But no, she would hardly do that. What woman would? But she might have assumed toward him a more hostile attitude.

Finally, his masculine vanity helped him to a conclusion. A woman seldom forgets her first love so easily, and he could meet her so differently now. She had not forgotten her love for him. He could win it back, and her forgiveness with it. And then—then, if he could but manage Cora, what would hinder him from marrying her, and being in clover ever after! He was tired of roving; they could go to the city; he need not give up gaming, and—he really loved the girl; had loved her since the day she had escaped from his snare.

Having arrived at this stage in his day-dream, he began to feel buoyant. And when he heard from the Professor the result of Madeline's visit to her step-father, his complacency was at high tide.

"It's all in a nutshell to me," said the Professor, as they smoked their confidential cigars in the privacy of Lucian's own room. "Mind, I don't suppose she is up to our game; she can't be, you know; but she is pretty thoroughly convinced that what she thinks is his insanity, is but temporary."

"How do you know that?" interrupted Lucian, sharply.

"Not from anything she said; I had very few words with her. But look here, Davlin, isn't this a clear case enough? When I went up to see the old fool, after their interview, I find him in a paroxysm of rage. Of course he makes his complaint; his ravings informed me of this: She told him that she did not really think him very crazy herself, but two doctors did, and she didn't feel called to dispute them. She told him that he could not prove himself sane in any court in America; and that he, being insane, was dead in law; and she was going to choose another guardian."

Lucian Davlin fairly bounded from the chair. "That's it!" he ejaculated under his breath.

"Then," pursues the Professor, puffing away tranquilly, "she comes straight from this interview and meets me, to whom she says that, 'It is a most deplorable and dangerous case; that he is really liable to attack me or Henry at any moment; that I must take every precaution and guard against his sudden attack, even if I were forced to confine him still more closely; and that she had suspected him of partial insanity long ago.' Now, what do you think of that?"

Precisely what he thought it was not Mr. Davlin's intention to tell. One idea, however, he expressed promptly enough: "I think," he said, leaning a little forward and looking full at his companion, "that you had better take the advice of Miss Payne. Confine him close, the closer the better; but don't drug him any more at present!"

The Professor nodded serenely as he said: "Right, quite right. Just what I was about to suggest."

He might have added that he had resolved upon taking the course indicated, even if the suggestion had not been made. "The young lady holds the winning cards," he had assured himself. "I will take her orders before I get myself in too deep!" His "too deep" meant deep as the grave.

And now Lucian had a new subject for conjecture. If Miss Payne proposed to appoint for herself a guardian, who would she select? Who had been caring for her during all these months? Was it man or woman?

The only information she had volunteered had been implied rather than spoken. In answer to Miss Arthur's rather abrupt query at the breakfast table, as to how she had managed to prosper so well in a strange city where she had no friends, the girl had replied, with a little laugh:

"I suppose it has never occurred to either yourself or Mr. Arthur that I might have found out some of my mother's friends. I was put in possession of my mother's journal on the very day that I ran away from Oakley. I am not so friendless as you may think."

Lucian was again puzzled, but knowing the girl as he did, he was not prepared to believe that a guardian, in the form of a lover, would appear. He was now convinced that Cora, whom at first he had somewhat doubted, was not for some unknown reason attempting to deceive him.

The Professor's story had corroborated hers, and given him, as he expressed it, "a fresh point" in his game. But alas for Lucian! Every fancied discovery only beguiled him farther and farther from the truth, and rendered him more and more blind to the chains that were being forged about him.