r words--named Percy.

Something must be done: things must be talked over. Come
down and make love to Miss Arthur. _Her_ money is not
entailed.

Bring me some Periques and a box of Alexis gloves--you know
the number. Yours in disgust,

CORA MME. ARTHUR.

Madeline dropped the letter, and stood amazed. What did it mean? "Cora
_Mme._ Arthur!"

Henry stooped for the letter, and the act recalled her to herself. She
thanked him for the service he had done her; told him of her intended
departure; gave him some last instructions, and dismissed him with a
kind good-by.

[Illustration: "I took the letter before I locked the desk."--page
127.]

"It is time to act," she muttered. "Good heavens! the audacity of that
man and woman! She is married to my step-father, if that letter does
not lie; has married him for money, and is baffled there. She hoped to
become _his widow_, aha! The plot thickens, indeed! Goodness! what a
household! That bad old man, the still viler woman, dangerous Lucian
Davlin, and that funny, youthful, cross, 'conceited spinster,' Ellen
Arthur, who has a lover, and his name is--heaven save us--Percy! That
name _will_ mix itself up with my fate web, and why? Percy beloved of
Claire; Percy who brought Philip Girard to his doom; Percy the lover
of a rich old maid, are ye one and the same? Percy! Percy! Percy! I
must cultivate the Percys at any cost."

She turned and entered the house, her head bent, thinking, thinking,
thinking.

CHAPTER XII.

A MESSAGE FROM THE DEAD.

Less than a week after the events last related, and a family group
surrounds the lunch table in the newly furnished morning room of
Oakley.

The fair and fascinating Mrs. Torrance had accomplished the purpose
for which she came to Bellair.

Truly had she said, "There is no fool like an old fool;" for John
Arthur had been an easy victim. He had lost no time with his wooing,
and so, a little less than two months from the day the fair widow came
to Bellair, saw her mistress of John Arthur's household.

A bridal tour was not to her taste, much to the delight of the
bridegroom. So they set about refitting some of the fine old rooms of
the mansion, Cora having declared that they were too gloomy to be
inhabitable.

As it was to her interest to keep up the deception of frank affection,
she had been, during the two months of their honey-moon, a model wife.
But the dis