Previous to Leslie Noble's visit to Countess Vera he has been the hero of an excited scene at Darnley House.

Since the night of Mrs. Vernon's party, Ivy has been, for the most part of the time, raving in angry hysterics, which Mr. Noble makes no smallest attempt to soothe or soften. In fact, he spends almost all of his time away from home, and a quiet as of the tomb seems to have fallen over the magnificent mansion with its splendid furniture and large retinue of servants. No one calls, no further invitations pour in upon them. Society seems to have tacitly turned the cold shoulder to them in their defeat and disgrace.

The rage, the shame, the humiliation of Mrs. Cleveland's mind no tongue can tell.

From the grave in which he lies moldering back to his kindred clay, her enemy has reached out an icy, skeleton hand, and struck the brimming cup of pride and triumph ruthlessly from her lips.

Through the agency of his child, the beautiful daughter she had hated so bitterly, he had avenged his terrible wrongs. There is murder in Marcia Cleveland's heart as she writhes under the retributive hand of justice. Fain would she grip her strong, white fingers around Vera's delicate throat, and press the life out, or plunge a dagger in her tender breast, or press a poisoned cup to those beautiful lips that had condemned her in such scornful phrases.

On the morning of that day when Leslie Noble has his interview with Lady Vera, Mrs. Cleveland is sitting alone with Ivy in a small, daintily-furnished morning-room that opens from the library.

They are anxiously discussing their situation and prospects, for it is impossible to conceal from themselves that Mr. Noble is dazzled by the prospect opening before him, and that the severance of the tie that has bound him to the shrewish Ivy is more agreeable to his mind than otherwise.

"Will he desert me, do you think, mamma? He used to love me, you remember," exclaims the fair termagant, trying to whisper comfort to her foreboding heart.

Mrs. Cleveland laughs, a low, bitter, sarcastic laugh.

"You do well to say once," she answers, "for whatever love he might have had for you in the past, you have killed it long ago by your foolish extravagance, your violent temper and self-will."

"Who incited me to it all, I wonder?" her daughter cries, turning her head angrily. "Who was it that told me to have my own way and defy him, since being my husband, he was perforce compelled to bear with me? Who but you, who now turn around and taunt me with the result of your teachings?"

"Well, well, and I was right enough." Mrs. Cleveland replies, coolly, justifying herself. "Of course I could not foresee how things would fall out, or I should have counselled you to keep your husband's love at all events. He might then have made some fight against this Countess Vera's claim. As it is——"

She pauses with a hateful, significant "hem."

"As it is," Ivy repeats after her, shortly. "Well, go on. Let us have the benefit of your opinion."

"He will be glad of any excuse to shake you off," finishes her mother.

"But he shall not do it," Ivy cries out, furiously, and brandishing her small fist as if at some imaginary foe. "I will stick to him like a burr. I am his wife. The woman that claims him is a hateful impostor. No one will make me believe that Vera Campbell's bones are not lying in the grave where we saw her buried three years ago."

"Perhaps this will convince you," exclaims a loud, triumphant voice, and Leslie Noble, striding suddenly into the room, holds an open paper before her eyes. It is the cablegram from Washington, telling him that the coffin beneath the marble monument is empty—that the bride he buried three years ago has escaped from her darksome prison house of clay.

"Do you believe now?" Leslie Noble demands, with something of insolent triumph in his voice and bearing as the two women crowd nearer and scan the fatal cablegram with dilated eyes and working faces.

Mrs. Cleveland answers, stormily:

"No, we do not believe such a trumped-up falsehood—not for an instant. I see how it is. You have lent yourself to a wicked plan in order to free yourself from poor innocent Ivy, whose greatest weakness has ever been her fondness for you, wicked and treacherous deceiver that you are! You strive for a high prize, in unlimited wealth and the greatest beauty in England. But you will see whether Ivy will tamely endure desertion and disgrace. She declares that she will not give you up, and I shall uphold her in that resolution!"

He stares at her a moment with an expression of fiery scorn and anger, then answers scathingly:

"I am sorry to hear that Ivy is so lost to self-respect as to wish to still live with a man who is bound to her only by a tie of the deepest dishonor and disgrace. But her intentions or yours can make not the slightest difference in what I am going to do. For more than two years I have been the meek slave of you and of Ivy—driven as bond slave was never driven before the triumphal car of your imperious will! You have recklessly dissipated my fortune, defied my warnings, trampled my wishes under foot, shown me all too plainly for mistake that I was married for my money, not at all for myself. The hour of my release has come at last, and with unfeigned gladness I throw off the yoke that has long been too heavy for endurance!"

They stare at him mutely—Mrs. Cleveland purple with rage, Ivy gasping for breath, and preparing to go off into furious hysterics. He takes advantage of the momentary lull in their wrath to proceed, determinedly:

"You must understand by this, Ivy, that as you are no longer my wife, indeed, never have been, that I will not again recognize you as such, and that an immediate separation is desirable. You have so beggared me by your extravagance that it is impossible for me to follow the generous dictates of my heart which would prompt me to bestow a goodly sum upon you. But I shall give you a check for a thousand dollars, and you may retain your dresses and jewels, by the sale of which you may realize a very neat little fortune. I have no more to say beyond expressing the hope that you will leave Darnley House by to-morrow and seek other quarters. I shall not return until you are gone."

While speaking he has laid with elaborate politeness a folded check by Ivy's elbow, and with a formal bow which includes both ladies in its mocking complaisance, he quits the room and the house, to seek that interview with Lady Vera which we have recorded in our last chapter.

"Deserted! Repudiated! Driven from home!" shrieks out Ivy, finding voice at last, and springing tragically to her feet. "Mamma, what shall we do now? Where shall we go?"

"We will go nowhere," Mrs. Cleveland answers, determinedly. "This is your home, and here we shall stay! I defy Leslie Noble to oust us from Darnley House. It will take something more than a cablegram and the oath of a countess to prove that you are not Leslie Noble's wife. Why, her own denial that she was ever buried proves that she is not Vera Campbell. How could she be ignorant of such a tragic event in her own life? No, no, Ivy, we will not quit Darnley House yet. Leslie Noble is not so easily rid of us as he fondly thinks. Darnley House is not ready to receive Countess Vera as its mistress yet. We will hold the fort."

Mrs. Cleveland is equal to most emergencies.

Confident in this knowledge she settles herself to abide by her decision. But in this case it turns out that she has reckoned without her host.

A week passes. Such a week as Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy have seldom spent, so quiet, so void of callers and excitement as it is. They have commenced by taking their usual daily drive, but before the week is out they discontinue it. Such curious, insolent glances follow them, such cold, averted looks meet them.

The fickle world that smiled on them its sweetest so lately, has only frowns and shrugs, and whispered detractions now.

Even Mrs. Cleveland's iron assurance quails before the storm of public disapproval, and she decides to hide her diminished head in the luxurious shades of Darnley House.

Of even this solace she is soon bereft.

A freezingly-polite letter arrives from the master of the mansion, desiring to know when they propose to vacate his premises. Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy return a prompt defiance to this inquiry, stating that they do not intend to leave at all.

And now the trodden worm turns with a vengeance.

On the following day all the servants of Darnley House leave in a body, after informing their mistress of their discharge by Mr. Noble. They decline to be re-engaged by Mrs. Noble, and Mrs. Cleveland hints bitterly at bribery on the part of her whilom son-in-law.

On the same day arrives a concise statement from Mr. Noble to the effect that a public sale of the house and its effects is advertised for the third day of that week. He is outdoing even themselves in cool, relentless malice.

"We shall have to go. We have been fairly whipped out by that scheming villain," Mrs. Cleveland groans, in indescribable wrath, and bitterness of spirit, and Ivy, throwing herself down on her satin couch, hurls bitter maledictions on Leslie Noble's name, and wishes him dead a hundred times.

But all their combined rage cannot hinder the course of events. So on the morning of the sale, just as a few curious strangers begin to invade the splendid drawing-rooms, Mrs. Cleveland and her daughter are quietly driven away in a closed carriage.