ything so disgraceful as a secret marriage."

"I know that he was very noble," faltered the poor little woman, "and I
must indeed have dreamed it if you deny that I heard such a statement.
Yet the dream was as vivid as a reality."

"Dreams often are, and this was only another instance," replied the
haughty woman, coldly, adding: "I see no use trying to find Dainty. She
went away of her own free will, and she will not communicate her
whereabouts till she chooses. With that you must rest content. As for my
part, I am free to confess that I am so indignant at her treachery to
Love that I don't care if I never see her face again!"

Mrs. Chase shrank sensitively from the angry flash of her
sister-in-law's black eyes, and returned meekly to Love's bedside to
watch the slowly sinking life and wipe the moisture from the pale brow
that Dainty had so loved to kiss, and her tortured heart prayed hourly:

"Oh, God, give back his life! Raise him up from this bed of illness,
that he may unravel the web of mystery that entangles the fate of my
lost darling!"

Mrs. Ellsworth was terribly frightened, for Sheila Kelly had promptly
told her of Dainty's declaration that she was already married to Love,
and her offer that Love would make her rich if she would set her free.

If the proud woman had felt the least pity for Dainty, it all died now
in the dread lest she should escape and rob her of the rich inheritance
that would be hers if Love died unmarried. She said to herself
resolutely that there was no help for it now. Dainty's life must be
sacrificed to the terrible exigencies of her position.

Not that Mrs. Ellsworth would have taken the girl's life with her own
white hands, or even deputed another to do so. Oh, no, no! Of course she
would not be so wicked, she told herself complacently.

But to imprison the poor girl on bread and water in a sunless dungeon,
and goad her to despair till she died of persecution, or even took her
own life--oh, that was quite another thing! thought the heartless woman,
stifling the voice of conscience in her determination to succeed in her
wicked aims.

With Sheila Kelly, as with Mrs. Chase, the mistress of Ellsworth laughed
to scorn the assertion of Dainty that she was Love Ellsworth's wife.

"She was only trying to work on your feelings--do not pay any attention
to her falsehoods," she said; and Sheila, who had half-way determined to
make capital some way out of her important secret, stupidly y