on. Now she
understands why Madeline has led Davlin on, and why her hatred of him
is so intense. Now she knows the meaning of the words that last night
seemed so mysterious: "Lucian Davlin is my lover, but I am his
bitterest foe." Now, as she steps forward, the hate she feels shining
in her eyes, and with a growing air of reckless bravado as she glances
at him, Cora, too, is Lucian Davlin's bitter foe.

"Cora!" The name comes from the lips of John Arthur, almost in a cry.

But she never once glances toward him. She fixes her eyes upon
Madeline's face and doggedly awaits her command.

"Tell us what you know of this man," Madeline says, pointing to Edward
Percy: "and be brief."

Cora turns her eyes slowly upon the man. She surveys him with infinite
insolence, and then she turns with wonderful coolness toward Ellen
Arthur.

"Miss Arthur," she says, with a malicious gleam in her eyes, "this
will interest you. I knew that man ten years ago. I was making my
first venture out in the world, and it was a very bad one. I fell in
love with his pretty face, and married him. Before long I discovered
that matrimony was a mania of Mr. Percy's--by-the-by, he sailed under
another name then. I found that he had another wife living; a woman he
had married for her money. Well, being sensitive, I took offense, and
after a little, I ran away from him, carrying with me the certificates
of his two marriages, which I had taken some pains to get possession
of. After that--"

Cora pauses suddenly and glances toward Madeline.

"After that you went to Europe. You may pass over the foreign tour,
and take up the story five years later," subjoins Madeline, coldly.

"After that, I went to Europe," echoes Cora. "And five years later
found me in Gotham."

"Be explicit now, please: no omissions," commands Madeline.

"Five years ago, then," resumes Cora, "that gentleman there,"
motioning to Davlin, but never turning her face toward him, "came to
me one day with the information that my dear husband was a rich man,
thanks to some deceased old relative, and that his other wife was
dead. For some reason this other marriage had been kept very secret,
and my friend there argued that in case anything happened to Percy, I
might come in as his widow, and claim his fortune. Well, Mr. Percy did
not die, more's the pity. Instead of that he lived and squandered his
money in less than three years. He was hurt, somehow, and a certain
Mr. Philip Girard was fa