It is surprising to note how many pretexts a resolute, husband-hunting spinster can find for keeping a victim at her side, long after his soul has left her, and gone forth with yearning for a downy couch, a fragrant cheroot, or a fairer face.

Edward Percy could be agreeable, for a reasonable length of time, to a very ugly woman. But even he felt himself an injured man when, at a late hour, he said good-night for the eleventh time to his fair enslaver—literally an enslaver, he thought. As the door of Oakley manor actually and audibly closed behind him, he heaved a sigh of gratification, and strode rapidly down the winding avenue.

When the first group of trees had sheltered him from the view of the infatuated spinster, should she still be gazing after him, Mr. Percy paused, and standing in the shadow, produced a cigar and was proceeding to light it, when a hand fell lightly upon his arm, and he turned with a confused idea that she had followed him, and was about to lead him back a prisoner. But the figure that he dimly saw was, certainly, not that of Miss Arthur.

"Pardon, monsieur! but I have a message for you."

"Ye gods!" ejaculated the aggrieved man.

Evidently the girl interpreted his thoughts, for she stifled a laugh as she said, quickly: "Not from Miss Arthur, monsieur; but from madame."

"Oh, from madame," drawing a long breath. "Well, even madame will be a blessed relief; out with it, girl."

"Madame will be grateful, I am sure," said the girl, mockingly. "Madame desires a word with you—now, to-night. Will you follow me?"

"Where?"

"To madame; she will be in the terrace arbor directly."

"Oh, very well," replacing his cigar in his pocket; "lead on, then."

CÉline flitted on before, until the arbor became dimly visible down the pathway. Then she paused, pointed it out to her companion, and said: "Madame will soon join you there, sir. Now I must hasten to my mistress; I have kept her waiting too long."

With a low, mischievous laugh she darted away in the direction of the house.

Percy turned and gazed after her; then followed a few paces and watched again, until she disappeared under a wide portico. Heaving a sigh of relief he turned back toward the arbor.

"I want no eavesdropping," he muttered; "and that minx might listen if she had time. She is no more a French maid than I am; she forgot her monsieur just now. But a sham maid is very appropriate for a sham maiden; now for Alice;" and he entered the arbor.

Had Mr. Percy been able to follow the retreating footsteps of the objectionable French maid, however, he might have found occasion to change his opinion of her lack of time for eavesdropping, and there was excellent opportunity for its practice about the shrubbery-surrounded arbor.

Meantime Ellen Arthur, having reluctantly bidden her "blonde demi-god" a last good-night, sought her chamber, swelling with satisfaction, and feeling somewhat hungry. Passing the door of her sister-in-law's rooms, she encountered Sarah, the romantic housemaid, who was just entering, bearing wine and a tiny glass. Glancing within, she encountered the gaze of Cora, who stood holding in her hand some black lace drapery.

"Horribly late, isn't it?" yawned that lady, nodding good-naturedly. "Set down the wine, Sarah, and then you may go. I'm so dismally slumbersome that if I keep you to help me, I shall fall asleep on your hands. Have some wine, Ellen?"

"No, thanks," said the spinster. "If you don't want Sarah, she may bring me up a nice lunch as soon as possible. I won't detain you any longer; good-night."

And Miss Arthur, who had meditated entering and giving Cora the benefit of some of her maiden dreams and fancies, marched away, a trifle offended at the manner in which her sleepy sister-in-law had anticipated and warded off the interview. Cora's good-night floated after her as she sailed down the corridor. Then she heard the door closed and the bolt shot into the socket. A little later, the door opened noiselessly, and a female figure glided down the dark stairways out into the night, and toward the arbor.

"CÉline shall undo my hair," Miss Arthur thought, "and I'll have her try that new set of braids and puffs, if it is late. I don't feel as if I could sleep."

But CÉline was not dutifully waiting in her mistress's dressing-room.

Sarah appeared with the lunch, and offered her services, but was summarily dismissed, for Miss Arthur did not deem it wise to initiate the house servants into the fearful and wonderful mysteries of her toilet. Therefore, she lunched in solitude and disgust, but heartily, notwithstanding, having just put off her very elaborate, but rather uncomfortable evening dress and donned a silken gown, acting as her own maid.

Then she fidgeted herself into a most horrible temper, and sat deliberately down before the grate in a capacious dressing-chair, determined to wait until the girl came, and deliver a most severe and stately reprimand, the exact words of which she had already determined upon.

The lady, sitting thus with her feet on the fender, her hands comfortably clasping the big arms of the dressing chair, and her head lolling rather ungracefully over its back, fell into slumber.

If Mrs. John Arthur had made a midnight appointment with Lucifer, she would have fortified herself for the encounter by making a "stunning" toilet. It was one of her fixed principles—she had fixed principles—never to permit friend or foe of the male persuasion to gaze upon her charms when they would show at a disadvantage. So when she entered the arbor, which was suffused with a soft moonlight glow from a heavily-shaded lamp, for the arbor stood among dense shrubbery, and but for this lamp would have been in Egyptian darkness, she was indeed a personification of loveliness.

Ungracious as was his mood, Percy would not have been a beauty-adoring mortal if he had not paid involuntary tribute to the charms of the woman who was his bitterest foe. Gazing down upon her a moment, he said in his soft legato:

"I am almost angry at you for being so beautiful, after having taken yourself to other lovers, Ma belle."

The woman smiled triumphantly, as she threw herself into an easy chair, and said in her softest, sweetest tone: "And did you expect me to go mourning for you all these years, sir?"

"I don't think you were ever the woman to do that;" dropping lazily into a rustic seat near her. "May I smoke?"

Cora nodded.

"Are you sure we are quite safe here?" looking about him. "Somehow, I am suspicious of that sharp French maid."

"Quite sure," nodding again. "Mr. Arthur was in bed before I came out; Miss Arthur was ordering up a lunch to her room, and the French maid must needs be in attendance for an hour or more; and besides, I know she is not at all dangerous. None of the other servants ever have occasion to come here, and most of them are in bed by now."

"So your charming sister-in-law eats, does she? After parting from me, too; ugh!"

"Eats? I should think so," laughing softly; "in her own room, when her stays are not too tight."

"Spare me!"

He held up both hands in mock deprecation; then, dropping his bantering tone, said, as he puffed at his cigar:

"But now to business. You did not come out here in such bewitching toilet to tell me that my charmer eats?"

"Hardly," with a pretty shrug.

"For what, then?"

"To come to an understanding with you," coolly.

"As how?" in the same tone.

"As to our future standing with each other."

"I thought that was settled to-day?"

"Did you? I don't think it was settled."

"Well, what remains, fair Alice?"

"Will you drop that name?"

"For the present, yes; but with reluctance."

"Oh, certainly!" bitterly. "Now, what are we to be henceforth?"

"Friends, of course," knocking the ashes off his cigar.

"You and I may be allies; we can never be friends," she said, scornfully.

"Don't trouble yourself to be insulting, Mrs.—a—Arthur."

"Then don't make me remember how I have hated you!"

"Have you really hated me? How singular."

"Very!" sarcastically; then: "If you don't drop that disagreeable tone we shall quarrel. I wish to know what you want with Ellen Arthur."

"Shade of my grandmother! If you don't drop that disagreeable name, I shall expire. Haven't I had enough of her for one day? Alice, I know revenge is sweet, but spare me."

"Bother! I must talk about her, else how can we settle anything? Do you suppose I am going to allow that sweet girl to be deceived?" This with mock indignation.

"Oh, no; certainly not! Well, if I must, I must. First, then—"

"First, what position do you intend to take towards me?"

"That depends upon yourself."

"On conditions?"

"On conditions."

"Name them."

"I am to be received as an honored guest whenever I shall choose to visit Oakley."

"Well."

"Next, you are to do all in your power to further my suit with Miss—you know."

"That's an easy task."

"Lastly, you are to promise me not, now or at any future time, to declare to any one aught you may know that might be to my disadvantage."

"That is to say, I am not to tell Ellen Arthur, or others, that you have two wives—"

"Softly; one, my dear, one. Mrs. Percy Jordan, number one, is dead; you alone are left. You see, Alice, my dear, the thing is reversed. You have two husbands now, while I—"

"Will have two wives as soon as you can get them!"

"Just so."

"And what guarantee have I that you will not betray me to Mr. Arthur?"

"The very best in the world; mutual interest."

Cora pondered. "I don't see but that you are right," she said, at last. "It certainly will not be to your interest to attempt to annoy me now, but how long is this truce to last?" looking at him keenly.

Percy smoked away in tranquil silence.

"Of course, I understand what you mean by a marriage with Miss Arthur," scornfully. "How long will it take you to squander her dollars? And after that, what will you do?"

"Question for question, fair cross examiner; how long do you intend remaining so quietly here, the bond slave of this idiotic old man? And what will you do when this play is played out?"

"Because I ran away from a profligate young husband, who had decoyed me into an illegal marriage—illegal for me, but sufficiently binding to have put you in the penitentiary for a bi—"

"Don't say it, my dear; don't. It's an ugly word, and, after all, are we not both in the same boat?"

"No," angrily. "Do you think I have been so poorly schooled during these years that you can make me think now that you have any hold upon me? Bah! your case is but a flimsy one. When you deceived me into a marriage with you, you had already another wife. You hid me away in a suburban box of a cottage, fancying I would be content, like a bird in a gilded cage. You never dreamed that meek little I would follow you, and find out from the woman's own lips that she had a prior claim upon you!"

"Candidly, I didn't credit you with so much pluck," said Percy, coolly.

"No! and when I charged you with your perfidy, and wept and upbraided you, and then became pacified when you told me that every proof of your marriage with that other was in your control, you did not dream that I would feign submission until I had gained possession of the proofs of both your marriages, and then run away?"

"And succeed in baffling my search for ten long years," supplemented he, grandiloquently. "No, fair dame, I did not."

"Your search, indeed! It was not a very eager one."

"Well, in truth it was not. The fact is, your beauty entrapped me into that very foolish marriage; but I was a trifle weary of blonde loveliness in tears, etc., so I didn't get out the entire police force, you see."

"And you wouldn't have found me if you had."

"Indeed! why not?"

"Because, if it will afford you any satisfaction to know at this late stage of the game, I sailed for Europe the very day I quitted your house."

"No!" opening his eyes in genuine astonishment. "Had it all cut and dried? Well, I like that! Why, little woman, if you had only developed one half the pluck latent in you, before you flitted, I would never have given you 'just cause,' etc., for leaving me."

The woman smiled triumphantly, but made no other answer.

"Well, what next? I am really becoming interested in your career."

"Sorry I can't gratify your curiosity. My career has been a very pleasant one—seeing the world; generally prosperous. And this brings me back to the starting point: why should you think, because I left you with good cause, ten years ago, that I must necessarily forsake, sooner or later, a husband who is kindness itself, and who leaves no wish of mine ungratified?"

"First reason," checking them off on his fingers: "Because you don't love this old man, and love is the only bond that such women as you will not break."

"Thanks!" ironically, bending her head.

"Second, because a dull country house, be it ever so elegant, will not long satisfy you as an abiding place. I have not forgotten your girlish taste for pomp, pageant and all manner of excitement; a taste that has doubtless become fully developed by now. Third, because you have, at this present moment, a lover whom you prefer above all others, and to whom you will flee sooner or later."

"Perhaps you can substantiate that statement," sneered Cora.

"Well, not exactly; but I know women. My dear, say what you please to me, but don't expect to be believed if you will insist upon doing the devoted wife."

"I insist upon nothing," said Cora, rising, "and I have not time for many more words. Let us come to the point at once: With my life, after I left you, you have nothing to do; you know nothing of it now, and you will learn no more from me. Of you, I know this much. I know that you clung, after your fashion, to the skirts of your unfortunate wife, spending her income and making her life miserable. I know that six years ago you inherited a fortune from a distant relative. I know that from that time you utterly neglected your wife, who had been an invalid for years; and that soon after she died, heart-broken and alone."

Percy turned upon her, and scrutinized her face keenly; then, coming close to her, said, meaningly: "And then I wonder that you did not come back to me."

For a moment the woman seemed confused, and off her guard. But she had not sought an interview with this man without fully reviewing her ground.

"I had ceased to care for you," she said, lifting her unflinching eyes to his face; "and I did not need your money. Come, enough of the past; you have squandered your fortune, and now you want another. You want to put yourself still more into my power by marrying a third wife—so be it; I consent."

"Not so fast. You are first to promise me to place in my hands, on my 'marriage morn,' those unpleasant little documents which you hold against me. In return for which you will receive a sum of money, the amount of said sum to be hereafter arranged. Then we go our separate ways."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then, painful as it is, I must do my duty. You are to give me your answer when I return to Bellair; no time for tricks, mind. If the answer is no, then I interview Mr. John Arthur."

"And you return?—"

"The day after to-morrow."

"Then you shall have my answer. Until then—"

She swept him a stately courtesy, which he returned with a most elaborate bow.

Without another word from either, they separated; she gliding swiftly and silently toward the house, he going once more in the direction of Bellair village.

How long she had slept it never afterward occurred to Miss Arthur to inquire. Something recalled her from the land of visions, and starting up in her chair she saw CÉline, standing demurely before her, her face wreathed in smiles, and no signs of any uncanny adventure lingering about her.

Beholding her safe and sound Miss Arthur began to pour out upon the luckless head of CÉline, the vials of wrath prepared for her benefit.

The girl listened with a face indicative of some secret source of amusement. Noting her look of evident unconcern, and the laughter she seemed vainly striving to keep under, Miss Arthur brought her tirade to an abrupt termination, and demanded to know what Miss CÉline Leroque saw, in her appearance, that was so very ludicrous.

Whereupon Miss CÉline Leroque dropped upon a hassock, at the feet of her irate mistress, and laughed outright—actually laughed unreservedly, in the presence and despite the rage of the ancient maiden!

Then observing that she was preparing another burst of wrath, the girl appeared to be struggling for composure, and vainly endeavoring to articulate something, of which Miss Arthur could only catch the name, "Mr. Percy." Thereupon she fairly bounced out of her chair, demanding to know "what on earth" Mr. Percy had to do with her maid's reprehensible conduct.

"Oh, mademoiselle, everything!" gasped CÉline. "Only let me explain, and mademoiselle will laugh, too. Oh, Mon dieu, Mon dieu!"

Calming herself by a violent effort, CÉline told her story, and its magic dispelled the wrath of her much neglected, sorely aggrieved mistress. Such a pretty little story it was, interspersed with sly looks, knowing nods, and rippling bursts of laughter. Listened to with, first, disdainful silence; then, growing interest; last, spasmodic giggles, apropos ejaculations, and much blushing and maidenly confusion.

"You see, mademoiselle, after you had gone down, I went to my room, to take just a few little stitches upon some of my poor garments, that I must wear to-morrow. I don't know how it was, but I sat on my bedside thinking, after it was done, and fell off asleep."

"Off the bed?"

"Oh! no, no, mademoiselle; off into sleep, I mean. When I awoke I was anxious to know how much time I had slept away, and came down to your apartments. You were still in the drawing-room, and I passed on to the kitchen, surprised to find that it was very late. 'I will hasten,' I thought, 'and can so go to the village, and telegraph my sister before my mistress rings for me;' for I didn't think," with a sly look, "that you would be at liberty very early in the evening. The—what you name him?—a—operateur, was out, and I had to wait a little time. Coming back so late, I became afraid of the woods, and took the path along the highway. Entering at the front and coming up the avenue, I was about to pass around by the east walk to the side entrance when,—" stifling a laugh.

"Well?" impatiently.

"When the front door opened and I, standing in the shadow, saw the light fall upon the face and figure of Monsieur Percy."

"Yes; go on."

"I mention this, mademoiselle, only to show you how I know so positively that it was monsieur who—oh! oh!" laughing again softly.

"Who?" with increased impatience; "who did what, girl?" eyeing her suspiciously.

CÉline composed herself and continued: "Seeing monsieur, I stopped, for I did not wish him to discover me abroad so late. So I stood in the thick shade until he should have passed. He came slowly toward me and, just about four paces from my hiding-place, paused, turned and looked, back at the house. I could see him gazing toward the upper windows, and presently I saw your shadow upon the blind as you entered your dressing-room. The light shone out from your window, too; and after looking for a while, I heard him murmur to himself: 'That must be her window; I believe I am bewitched, for I can't bear to lose its light,' and then—"

"Stop laughing, you ridiculous girl! And what then?"

"And then, mademoiselle, he began walking up and down within sight of your window—"

"Ah!" rapturously.

"Oui; and I—oh, mademoiselle, he was in the very path that I must take to approach the side entrance. And he walked and walked, and I waited and waited. Then I thought I would try getting around by the other way, and creep up carefully from the terrace. So I crept along to the other side, back of the arbor, and up the terrace, and managed to reach the entrance unseen. Mon Dieu, mademoiselle, the door was locked! I was shut out! What was I to do then? I sat me down in the shadow of the portico and waited once more. After a terribly long time I could see that he was not moving up and down. I peeped cautiously, and he seemed to be departing. Then I came out stealthy as a cat, and found that he was going away, and the reason—"

"The reason?"

"Oui, mademoiselle; the light in your room had disappeared."

"Disappeared!"

"Oui, mademoiselle. Then I bethought me there might yet be a chance. I came up to the front entrance and tried the door. It was not locked. My heart leaped for joy. I blessed the carelessness of the servants, and stole cautiously in. I came to this room. All was dark; but the coals there showed me your figure in the chair. I could not mistake the graceful outlines of mademoiselle. I entered very quietly, relighted your lamp—some little breeze must have flared it out while you slept. I was looking at you, and wondering what you would say if you knew how nearly crazy with love you had driven that stately, handsome Monsieur Percy, when you awoke."

It is needless to say that, long before CÉline had finished her recital, her mistress was in the best of humors. Indeed, CÉline's volubly uttered, intensely flattering, highly probable recital, had an exhilarating effect upon her; so much so, that the lady found sleep now quite impossible. So poor CÉline was doomed, after all, to build the new braids and puffs into a wonderful edifice upon the head of Miss Arthur, and to repeat over and again the sweet story of "how he loved her."

The "wee sma'" hours were beginning to lengthen once more when CÉline was released from duty, and went wearily up to her room; wearily, yet with undimmed eyes, and the mischievous dimples still lurking about the corners of her mouth.

She muttered: "Bah! it is better than sleep, after all; if only the others were as easily duped as she!"

By which words, a listener might have been led to suppose that CÉline Leroque had been practising deception upon some confiding individual.