ng than in matters of the toilet. She knew herself to be under
continual surveillance. Above stairs or below, Madeline or Hagar,
Strong or Joliffe were not far away. And yet she had not abandoned her
plan of escaping.

One morning, Cora, looking from the window of her dressing room, saw
two men moving about in the grounds below. Upon commenting upon their
presence there, Strong had answered, readily;

"Yes, madame, Joliffe tells me that they are here to sink a well. Miss
Payne has decided to have a fountain among those cedar trees, and they
are to go to work immediately."

"But a well in winter! They can't dig."

"They don't dig; they bore. It's to be a fountain, madame."

But in spite of the "fountain" explanation, Cora knew that the house
was guarded from without as well as from within.

"It's no use to warn Lucian, or anybody, now," she thought. "It would
only get us all into worse trouble."

But still she did not abandon the thoughts of her own escape.

And now began a time of trial for poor Ellen Arthur. Madeline Payne,
after studiously ignoring the two men for some days, began to unbend.
She commenced by conversing with Percy, listening to his slow and
stately sentences, smiling her approval, and completely captivating
that susceptible gentleman. Then, by degrees, she drew Lucian into the
conversation, and smiled upon and listened to him.

All this Cora observed, wondering what the girl was trying to do;
while the spinster looked on in untold agony, fearful lest this fair
sorceress should avenge herself for some of her childish grievances by
robbing her of her lover.

Meanwhile Lucian Davlin interpreted all this in his own favor. "She
is proud and still resentful," he thought. "And she is using Percy as
a medium of approach to me."

At last Lucian, growing impatient, resorted to an old, old trick. He
watched his opportunity, and one evening, as Madeline was following
Cora from the drawing-room, the door of which he was holding open for
their exit, he pushed into her hand a small scrap of paper.

She would have dropped it; her first impulse was to do so, but Cora
turned as her hand was about to loosen its clasp upon the fragment. So
she passed on, carrying it with her to her own room. There she opened
it and read these pencilled words:

For God's sake do not torture me longer. You have condemned
me without a hearing. Be as merciful as you are strong and
lovely. At least let me see you