hed still lower, and her hand, as she threw it out wildly, came
in contact with something hard and cold. It was a long, thin,
sharp-bladed knife which the gardener had been using only that day to
trim the bushes, and which, in his hurry, he had carelessly forgotten.
She realized instantly what it was, and, with the thought, a diabolical
idea crept into her brain.

"Why should Dorothy Glenn live to enjoy the smiles of the man whose love
she has robbed me of," she muttered below her breath, "while my heart
hungers and my soul quivers in endless torture for the affection that
is denied me? I can endure it no longer!"

The mad desire to spoil the fair beauty of her rival overpowered her
until the thought possessed her and rendered her almost a fiend
incarnate.

Grasping the long, sharp-bladed knife tightly, Nadine Holt raised her
right arm slowly, cautiously. Not so much as a leaf rustled to warn the
two sitting on the rustic bench of the terrible danger that hung over
them.

Harry Kendal's low, musical voice sank to a lower cadence. He drew the
slender figure of the girl nearer and that action was fatal.

There was a quick, whizzing sound, followed by an awful cry of terror
from Iris, and Kendal's hand, resting lightly about her waist, was
deluged in blood.

"Murder! murder! Oh, heavens!" shrieked Iris, and she fell at his feet
in a swoon.

In the commotion Nadine Holt turned like a pantheress and made her
escape from the conservatory and from the house.

"Murder! murder!" Those terrible cries that rent the air were the first
sounds that Dorothy heard as her benumbed brain gained consciousness.
And as she staggered, benumbed and dazed, to her feet she almost fell
over a slimy knife lying there, and at that instant a strong hand flung
back the rose-vines and Harry Kendal, white and quivering with wrath,
confronted her.

"Dorothy Glenn!" he cried, in a horrible voice fairly reverberating with
intense emotion, "You! Oh, you cruel, wicked girl! You--you fiend! to do
what you have done!" and reaching out his hand he flung her backward
from him as though she were a scorpion whose very touch was
contamination. "Fly up to your own room," he cried, hoarsely, "and do
not leave it for a moment until I come to you there! Have nothing to
say; refuse to speak to any one!" and catching her fiercely by the
shoulder, he fairly dragged her through the conservatory toward the rear
door, which communicated with a back stairway tha