Far away from the spot where Countess Vera broods over her oath of vengeance, in far America, away in the green heart of the langourous south, is the white marble palace where Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter dwelt, hidden from the knowledge of the man they had wronged, and who had sworn to bring home to them the ruin they had wrought.

To-day, a lovely morning in the autumn of that summer in which the Earl of Fairvale died, Mrs. Cleveland comes out on the piazza of her stately southern home, with a frown upon her brow. Behind her, in the magnificent saloon she has just quitted, high words are raging.

"You never loved me, or you would do as I wish you," wails the weak voice of Ivy to her husband, as, dissolved in tears, she flings herself upon a costly sofa.

"I begin to think I never did, but all the same you and your mother have ruined me by your cursed extravagance. I have not a thousand dollars to my name in bank. This place will have to be sold and we can live on the proceeds a little longer, perhaps," Leslie Noble answers, in a sharp, high-pitched voice, as he strides up and down the floor, cursing within his heart the weak fancy that had led him to marry this shrewish creature.

"Ruined! I do not believe one word of it!" Mrs. Noble breaks out, starting up and glaring at him with her pale, blue eyes. "It is a falsehood you have trumped up to keep from taking mamma and me to Europe where our hearts are just breaking to go! You know very well we have not spent a fortune in the little year and a half we have been married. We couldn't have done it."

"We have done it, anyhow," he answers, sullenly. "It was no difficult manner, considering the way in which you and your mother have forced me to live. Furniture fit for a palace, jewels costly enough for a queen, entertainments costing thousand of dollars, recklessly repeated over and over. We are at the end of the line at last, and you may yet have to take in washing for a living."

"You brute!" she exclaims, flashing him a glance of wrath and scorn. "To begrudge us the pleasant time we have had! I did not know you could be so mean and stingy! Of course I knew that your bachelor uncle in Philadelphia—the one you are named for—would leave you his money when he died. I wish he would die now. He's mortally slow about it. I should think he must be a hundred years old."

"Good God, Ivy! what a heartless and mercenary woman you are!" her husband cries, stormily. "That poor old man, my uncle, who never harmed living soul, how dare you wish for his death? Upon my soul, I am tempted to write to him to leave his money to some orphan asylum or art gallery just to disappoint your hopes."

"You would not dare!" she sobs, hysterically.

"Try me too far, and see what I will not dare," he answers, threateningly, and she stops her sobbing and looks up, fearfully, at the dark, handsome face bent sternly upon her with two smouldering fires in his gloomy black eyes.

It is not as handsome and refined a face as Leslie Noble could boast of two years ago. There are lines of dissipation on it. There is a certain hardness and coarseness upon it, as if engendered by ill-nature and the free indulgence of evil passions. Association with such a woman as Ivy Cleveland would naturally bring that look into a man's face. Coarse, selfish, and unprincipled herself, she has dragged the man's weak, easily-moulded nature down upon a level with her own.

"When I married you, Ivy," pursues Mr. Noble, "I desired to take you to Europe on a bridal tour, but you and your mother, for no earthly reason that I can imagine, declined to go. You refused my offers to take you to my own home in Philadelphia, preferring, as you said, the sunny south for a home. Now you have changed your minds, and declare American life monotonous and unendurable, and fancy you would like to figure in the courts of Europe. You had just as well cry for the moon. You have recklessly dissipated your own property and mine, and must bear the consequences. I cannot afford to take you abroad, and I do not desire to be badgered about it any longer."

"You shall hear about it day and night until I get my wish," Ivy cries, with passionate defiance. "Sell this house and all our fine furniture if you choose. It will bring enough with what you have in bank to afford us a brilliant season in London. Then by the time we return old Noble will have died, perhaps, and left us his fortune."

"Did I not tell you I will not have Uncle Leslie's death counted on so coarsely?" cries Mr. Noble, furiously. "You are a perfect harpy."

"And you are a brute!" Mrs. Noble retorts. "Aren't you ashamed to call your wife such names? and you pretended to be in love with me when you married me, you cruel, unfeeling wretch!"

"You dropped your mask as soon as I made you my wife, and showed me what you really were," Leslie Noble answers, with bitter anger and scorn. "I was only a tool for you, and a stepping-stone to power. Your mother's money was well-nigh exhausted, and you married me so that you could squander mine. Then, too, you have the most horrible temper in the world. Do you think any man could continue to love such a woman?"

"How dare you talk to poor, dear Ivy so cruelly?" Mrs. Cleveland exclaims, stepping back through the low, French window, and glaring at her son-in-law with tigerish hate in her keen, black eyes. "You have frightened her into hysterics, you unfeeling wretch!"

"I would thank you not to interfere between me and my wife," he answers, stung to defiance by the insolence of both mother and daughter. "You have always thrust yourself into my affairs. You have been the power behind the throne and moved Ivy like a puppet at your will. I wish to Heaven you would go away and leave us to fight our own battles. It would be something to be rid of even one of you!"

A scream of rage from Ivy, who proceeds to roll on the floor in violent hysterics. Such scenes as these are of frequent occurrence, but Mr. Noble has seldom spoken his mind so plainly, especially on the subject of his mother-in-law. There is no telling what might have happened, for Mrs. Cleveland looks furious enough to spring upon the offender and rend him limb from limb, but at this moment there appears upon the scene a messenger with one of those yellow-covered envelopes which carry joy or sorrow to so many hearts.

"A telegram," Mr. Noble exclaims, and tears it hurriedly open.

As he reads, a look of sorrow, strangely blended with relief, comes out upon his features. His wife, forgetful of her sham hysterics, springs up and regards him, intently.

"A telegram! From whom? And what does it mean?" she exclaims.

"It is from my lawyer," Mr. Noble answers, bitterly, "and it means that the devil takes care of his own so well that you will be able to gratify your latest whim. My uncle is dead and has left me his whole fortune."

"Glorious news!" Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter echo with one accord.