her quailing eyes.

"Listen to me, Burden: pull yourself together. Tell me what you
know--tell me this instant! Well? Sit there in that chair. Now!" She
pressed the shoulders she still held with the gesture of an Arab slave
driver. "Now, quick! Who is she? What do you know against her?"

In faltering accents, and yet with a kind of savage pleasure, Burden
spoke for some minutes; and as Lady Luce listened, the pallor of her
face gave place to a flush of fierce, malicious joy.

"Are you sure? You say you saw, you listened? Are you sure?" she
said--hissed, rather--at the end of Burden's story.

"I--I am quite sure," she responded. "I--I could swear to it. I was just
outside the library."

Lady Luce paced up and down with the gait of a tigress.

"If I could only be sure," she panted; "if I could only be sure! But you
may be mistaken. Wait!" Her hand fell upon Burden's shoulder again. "Go
downstairs, look at the people, and tell me if you see her there.
Quick!"

Burden, wincing under the savage pressure of her hand, rose, and stole
from the room.

In less than five minutes she was back.

"Well?" demanded Lady Luce, as Burden closed the door and leaned against
it.

"It--it is the same. I saw her," she said suddenly.

Lady Luce sank into a chair, and was silent and motionless for a
moment; then she sprang up and laughed--a hideous laugh for such perfect
lips.

"Get out my pale mauve silk. Dress me, quick! I am not going to leave
the house. I am going downstairs to make Miss Lorton's acquaintance!
Quick!"

Burden got out the exquisite dress. The flush which had risen to her
mistress' face was reflected in her own. This Miss Lorton had helped to
capture her beloved, her "martyred" Ted, and he was going to be avenged!

CHAPTER XL.

After Luce had swept from the room, Drake remained for a minute or two
thinking the thoughts that a man must think under such circumstances;
then he went slowly down to the drawing-room.

The countess was watching and waiting for him, and she looked up at his
grave countenance anxiously as he came toward her.

"It is all right," he said, in his quiet way; "she is going at once."

His composure, the Angleford impassiveness which always came to their
aid in moments of danger and difficulty, impressed her; she drew a
breath of relief, and signed to the butler, who was hovering about
awaiting her signal. "Dinner is served, my lady," he announced solemnly;
and Drake gave the