But we must digress a short while from the main points of our story to note what became of our villain, Otho Maury, after Floyd Landon and our heroine left him unconscious on the floor, to recover at his leisure from his long swoon.

Never was a villain assured of success in a nefarious design more cleverly checkmated.

In a few minutes after their departure, Otho revived, and lifted his head in wonder at his position.

A darting pain in his wounded neck recalled him sharply to a sense of all that had happened.

He had gone to Suicide Place to search for Floy, and found her; but she was armed, and had attacked him desperately with a murderous looking dagger.

He had swooned with the pain of the wound she gave him, and knew no more.

How long ago had that been? How long had he been lying here? And where was Floy?

He called her name faintly in the silence, but only the echoes of the grim old house gave reply.

“She has fled the scene believing that I am dead, curse her!” he muttered, vindictively, dragging himself up out of the slippery pool of blood beneath him, and dropping heavily into an arm-chair. Then he discovered, to his surprise, that his neck had been carefully bandaged.

Not knowing, of course, of the presence of the detective who had come upon the scene the moment after he swooned, he was filled with wonder at the fact that Floy had apparently bandaged his neck.

“But she has escaped me again! The foul fiend must have helped her to drive that blow into my neck!” he muttered, angrily; adding: “But she would not have found me such an easy victim—I could have grappled with her and taken away the weapon—only that I was unnerved and trembling from the sights I had seen before I entered this room.”

He shuddered and glanced fearfully at the door, as though expecting some unearthly presence to appear.

“Alone in a haunted house!” he muttered, fearfully. “I that always laughed at spooks and phantoms! But I shall never deny them again. I have stumbled by accident on the secret of this old house, and I know that it has its restless ghost. What if I could turn my knowledge to account, and—— Ugh! what was that?”

He broke off, shuddering, for a fiend’s laugh seemed to echo in the stillness—the laugh of a fiend who has tempted some poor soul to its eternal ruin. It was more than the unstrung nerves of the man could bear.

With a muttered imprecation, he seized his hat from the floor, where it was lying, and groped his way out of the dismal house into the sweet night air.

But as he closed the door and turned from the accursed threshold, that fiendish, mocking laugh seemed to follow him with taunting echoes down the road.

Slowly and painfully he made his way home, thankful that the pall of midnight covered the earth, so that none saw him in the blood-soaked garments he wore.

Going to Maybelle’s room, he told her what had happened, and asked her to examine the wound.

Shuddering at sight of the blood, his sister carefully unwrapped the bandages, and found that the wound—a very slight one, though it had bled freely—had already been carefully dressed.

“Your swoon must have been a long one, to enable her to do all this before she fled from the house,” said Maybelle, as she carefully replaced the bandages.

Otho was bitterly chagrined at the failure of his scheme and Floy’s second escape from his devilish machinations.

“And the worst of it is that I can not follow up her track for some time now. I shall be obliged to keep my room several days with this mark of affection she has given me,” he growled.

Maybelle wept in bitterness of spirit; but she had no reproaches to offer him now. He had done all that he could, and was not to blame for his failure.

It seemed to her as if her lovely rival must indeed bear a charmed life, so cleverly had she escaped each time from the machinations of her enemies.

Her chances of ever winning Beresford grew each day less and less; but so madly had she fixed her heart upon him that it seemed to her without that hope she must die.

It was less than a year since she had known him, but her jealousy had altered all her life.

Before she met him, Maybelle had been simply a handsome, selfish girl, ambitious to make a grand match—even to secure a title, if possible.

Mrs. Vere de Vere had abetted all her desires; but no grand suitor had fallen into the net they spread until Beresford’s careless flirting had awakened hopes never to be realized, and, alas! roused the sleeping devil in a nature well endowed with capabilities for evil.

What a potent factor is Love in all the affairs of life.

Laugh at Love, flout him as we may, he still is our master, we his slaves.

Maybelle’s unhappy love and thwarted ambition had roused all the worst passions of her nature. She would have committed any evil deed that would have won her Beresford’s heart.