nd to remain as
long as she should feel inclined to stay--certainly until we could
settle upon some plan of life for her future. I sent a check to pay her
traveling expenses to North End, where I shall send the carriage to meet
her. You will, therefore, Cora, have a comfortable room prepared for
Mrs. Stillwater. I think she may be with us as early as to-morrow
evening," said the Iron King.

And he arose and strode out of the parlor, leaving his granddaughter
confounded.

Rose Stillwater the widow of a year's standing! Rose Stillwater coming
to Rockhold as the guest of her aged and widowed grandfather! What a
condition of things! What would be the outcome of this event? Cora
shrank from conjecturing.

She felt that there had been two factors in bringing about the
situation: first, the death of her grandmother; second, the marriage of
her Uncle Fabian. The field was thus left open for the operations of
this scheming adventuress and siren.

Cora had been so dismayed at the communication of her grandfather that
she had scarcely answered him with a word. But he had been too deeply
absorbed in his own thoughts and plans to notice her silence and
reserve.

He had expressed his wishes, given his orders, and gone out. That was
all.

What could Cora do?

Nothing at all. Too well she knew the unbending nature of the Iron King
to delude herself for a moment with the idea that any opposition,
argument, or expostulation from her would have so much as a feather's
weight with the despotic old man.

If he had asked Mrs. Stillwater to Rockhold under present circumstances,
Mrs. Stillwater would come, and he would have her there just as long as
he pleased.

Cora was at her wits' end. She resolved to write at once to her Uncle
Fabian. Surely he must know the true character of this woman, and he
must have broken off his very questionable acquaintance with her before
marrying Violet Wood. Surely he would not allow his father to be so
dangerously deceived in the person he had invited to his house--to the
society of his granddaughter. He would unmask her, even though in doing
so he should expose himself.

She would also write to Sylvan, who from the very first had disliked and
distrusted "the rose that all admire." And she thanked Heaven that Cadet
Haught would graduate at the next exhibition at West Point and come
home on leave for the midsummer holidays.

While waiting answers from the two absent men she would consult her
Unc