Ere Lady Vera fully recovers consciousness again, she has reached her destination, the ruins of a once fine old mansion in the heart of a dense wood near the sea.

She opens her eyes in a large and lofty upper chamber to find herself lying in a high, old-fashioned, four posted bed, with faded hangings of crimson velvet. Two waxen candles in silver candelabra on the tall, carved mantel shed a soft, steady light through the room, and by their aid Vera deciphers the features of a stout, middle-aged woman, in cap and apron, who is bending over her, bathing her face and hands with aromatic vinegar.

The beautiful girl springs up to a sitting posture with a cry of fear and indignation, and with outstretched hands repulses the woman.

"Do not touch me, wretch!" she cries. "How dared you bring me here, away from my home and friends? You shall suffer for this."

But the woman only smiles as if at the ravings of a spoiled child.

"My lady, you are mistaken," she answers, not unkindly. "It was your husband who brought you here. I am only your maid. I am here to wait upon you."

"I have no husband," Lady Vera answers, with a cold thrill of fear creeping around her heart.

"Oh, my lady, don't go for to say that," the woman answers, cajolingly. "Such a kind, handsome man as Mr. Noble is ought not to be denied by his wife. I'm sure it was very good in him to carry you off, and hide you from the people as wanted to put you into a lunatic asylum. The keepers would have abused you dreadfully, my poor dear, but I shall be as kind and patient with you as your own mother. Your husband is that tender-hearted he couldn't bear to see you ill-used."

"So it is Leslie Noble who has abducted me," Lady Vera thinks to herself, with a start. Up to that moment her suspicions had turned upon Marcia Cleveland. "The wretch! And he has pretended to this woman that I am crazy."

The crimson color flies into the captive's face, then retreats, leaving her deathly pale again. She rises and walks up to the woman, who retreats half-fearfully before her.

"You need not fear me," Lady Vera tells her, sadly. "I have no intention of harming you. I only wish to ask you a simple question."

Thus adjured, the woman waits respectfully, humoring the whim of her mistress.

"Look at me," says Lady Vera, lifting the dark fringe of her brilliant, star-like eyes, and fixing a calm, steady gaze on the woman's face. "Do I look like a mad person? You know that lunatics have a wild, dangerous glare in their eyes. Are not mine calm, reasonable, steady?"

"She is one of the cunning ones," the maid mutters to herself, then aloud, soothingly, she answers: "They are beautiful eyes, my lady, so bright and black! No wonder my master adores you, so lovely as you are."

"I tell you I am not mad," Vera cries impatiently, vexed at the woman's stolid persistence in her belief. "I am as sane as you are, and your master is a villain. He has abducted me from my friends and my home, but they will trace me out and punish him for his villany, be sure of that."

"Come, my dear, do not excite yourself. It will all come well. Sit down in this arm-chair, and make yourself comfortable, while I go and fetch your lunch and a cup of tea. I dare say you have had no dinner, traveling so far."

She wheels forward a large, crimson-cushioned easy-chair, but Lady Vera rejects it with a gesture of scorn.

"Where is the man you call your master?" she inquires, haughtily. "Is he in the house?"

"Yes, my lady. Should you be pleased to see him?" inquires her keeper, deferentially.

"Yes; tell him to come. I wish to know the meaning of this dastardly outrage," the countess answers, indignantly.

The woman withdraws with a bow. The click of a key in the lock informs Lady Vera that she is a prisoner. She paces up and down the floor, a storm of indignation raging in her breast, mixed with a wild hope that her friends will soon deliver her from the trap into which she had walked so unsuspectingly.

Suddenly the key clicks in the lock, and Leslie Noble walks boldly into the room.