say?" gasped Cora.

"Told him to come, of course, as soon as it was safe to do so."

"Well!" said Cora, dryly, "I don't think it will be very safe for
either of them to come just at present."

"Oh, well," said the doctor, cheerfully, "we have got seven long days
to settle about that. And if they insist upon coming, and _then catch
the fever_, they mustn't blame me."

And Dr. Le Guise looked as if he had perpetrated a good joke.

John Arthur's insanity was as short-lived as it was violent. He lay
for the rest of the day quiet and half stupefied. When night came on,
he sank into a heavy slumber.

At twelve o'clock that night, all was quiet in and about the manor.

Cora Arthur was sleeping soundly, dreamlessly, as such women do sleep.
In the room adjoining hers, Celine Leroque sat, broad awake and
listening intently. At last, satisfied that her mistress was sleeping,
Celine arose and stole softly into the room where she lay.

Softly, softly, she approached the couch, passing through a river of
moonlight that poured in at the broad windows. Then she drew from a
pocket, something wrapped in a handkerchief.

Noiselessly, swiftly, she moved, and then the handkerchief, shaken
free from the something within, was laid upon the face of the sleeper,
while the odor of chloroform filled the room.

Nimbly her fingers moved, pulling away the coverings, and then the
clothing, from the unconscious body. It is done in a moment. With a
smothered exclamation of triumph, she draws away a _silken belt_, and
removing the handkerchief, glides noiselessly from the room.

She steals on to her own room in the west wing. Here she locks the
door and, striking a light, hurriedly rips the silken band with a tiny
penknife, and draws from thence two papers.

One glance suffices. Replacing the papers, she binds the belt about
her own body, and then envelopes herself in a huge water-proof, with
swift, nervous fingers.

And now, for the second time, this girl is fleeing away from Oakley.
Out into the night that is illuminated now by a faint, faint moon;
through the bare, leafless, chilly woods, and down the path that
crosses the railway track not far from the little station. Once more
she follows the iron rails; once more she lingers in the shadows,
until the train thunders up; the night train for New York. Then she
springs on board.

For the second time, Madeline Payne is fleeing away from Oakley and
all that it contains; fleeing cityward