Only Heaven knows how I have worked to get a day off and to earn extra
money to make this little trip! And now I am here to face him. Is he
married to Dorothy Glenn, I wonder? It would take only that knowledge to
make a fiend incarnate of me!"

At that moment one of the servants passing along the porch stopped short
at sight of the young woman in black, with the death-white face and
flashing black eyes, peering into the ball-room from the long porch
window.

"They are having a great time in there," he said, jerking his head with
a nod in the direction of the ball-room.

"Yes!" returned Nadine Holt, sharply.

Then it occurred to her that she could find out something about the
lover who had deserted her. And there was another thing which puzzled
her greatly. The name which he had given the florist was not the one by
which she had known him--she would find out all by this man. Now he was
calling himself Mr. Harry Kendal--that was the name he had given the
florist.

"In whose honor is the ball given, my good fellow?" she asked, with an
assumption of carelessness.

For a moment he looked stupidly at her.

"I mean, who is giving the ball?" she added.

"Oh, it's Mr. Kendal, ma'am--leastwise, he and Miss Dorothy are giving
it together."

She started as though a serpent had stung her, then stood perfectly
still and looked at the man with gleaming eyes.

"Miss Dorothy--who?" she asked, knowing full well what his answer must
be.

"Miss Dorothy Glenn, ma'am," he replied. "But she won't be 'miss' very
long, for she is soon to marry Mr. Kendal."

"Soon to marry him!" she repeated, vaguely, saying in the next breath,
"then they are not _already_ married," muttering the words more to
herself than to the man. "Where does this girl, Dorothy live?" she
asked, suddenly.

"That I couldn't say, ma'am," he replied. "I only came to Gray Gables
to-day, to work. I know only the little that I have heard the servants
say while at their work this afternoon. They say Miss Dorothy is very
beautiful."

CHAPTER XXI.

The white face into which the man gazed grew whiter still, the eyes
dilated, and her heart twinged with a pang of jealousy more bitter than
death to endure.

People always made that remark when speaking of Dorothy. It was that
fatal gift which had won her lover from her, Nadine said to herself, and
which had wrecked her life.

Oh! if she could but destroy that pink-and-white beauty!

The thought was born i