any longer."

"I suppose," she sighed, "that I should not ask too much. Well, so be
it, then."

They walked back to the house in silence. At the door of a side
entrance she turned to him, her face flushing at the admission, and
said, hastily, "I waited a long time for you, Graydon," and then fled
to her room.

"Oh, confound it!" he muttered, as he walked away. "What a muddle it
all is! I ought to feel like strangling myself for permitting this
doubting, cynical spirit to creep over me. Curse it all! her words and
manner haven't the ring of absolute truth. It seems as if I heard a
voice in the very depths of my soul, saying, 'Beware!' Am I becoming
an imbecile? I doubted and misjudged Madge. Thank Heaven that is past
forever! Now I am doubting and misjudging the woman I have asked to
be my wife. I must be misjudging her--the alternative is horrible.
I can't escape one conviction, however. It is turning out just as I
expected and told her it would. Arnault's aid to her father has been
delusive, and Wildmere is deeper in the mire than ever. This is a fine
ending of my social career! The girl of my choice puts me off until
she can end this Wall Street business more satisfactorily. She must
wait and hear her father's reasons for further diplomacy before she
can answer me. If Henry knew all this--But Madge, crystal Madge, won't
repeat what I said. I must risk the loss of her society also. Has
her keen insight into character enabled her to detect these Wildmere
traits, and is this the cause of her antipathy? How simply she said 'I
couldn't do'--what Stella has accomplished with so much skill that the
gossips in the house are in honest doubt as to her choice, or whether,
indeed, she proposes to accept either Arnault or myself. Well, well,
I'll wait till she has had this interview with her father, and then
she must either decide for me and against such tactics forever,
or else she can wear my scalp in her belt with those of the other
unfortunates."

In an hour he was on the road with Dr. Sommers to a wild and secluded
valley.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE ENEMIES' PLANS

It has been shown that Arnault believed the decisive period to have
come that would see the success or failure of his "operation" in
the Catskills. Keen, penetrating, he had comprehended the situation
clearly. He knew that Stella wished to accept Graydon, and was held in
check by financial considerations only. He had seen her manner during
the precedin