g
nonsense--humbuggery!"

"Then, pray, what brings you here? what is your object in coming?" asked
the other, with a covert sneer.

"To hear what lies you could trump up," replied Kendal boldly.

"Our interview is ended," said the veiled figure, rising and pointing
her long arm toward the door.

He knew that he must temporize with her if he would find out Dorothy's
whereabouts, which he was beginning to believe she might find out for
him.

"Will you pardon me?" he asked, humbling himself. "I--I must know more."

"You have heard all that I have to say, Harry Kendal!" she cried.

Who was this creature who knew him--aye, knew his name, his most secret
affairs? He must--he would know.

With a quick bound he cleared the space which divided them, and in a
trice he had grasped her wrists firmly and torn the veil from her face.

This was followed by a mighty cry.

CHAPTER XXV.

The instant Harry Kendal sprang toward the veiled woman she sprang
backward, as though anticipating the movement, and quick as a flash she
overturned the candle, just as he tore the veil from her face.

A low, taunting laugh broke from her lips through the inky darkness of
the room. In a trice she had torn herself free from his grasp, and like
a flash she had sped from the room and down the narrow hall and
stairway, like a storm-driven swallow, leaving her companion stumbling
about the place, and giving vent to curses loud and deep as he fumbled
about his vest pocket for matches.

The veiled woman never stopped until she reached the street, then paused
for a moment and looked back as she reached the nearest gas lamp.

As the flickering rays of the street lamp fell athwart her face, the
features of Nadine Holt were clearly revealed, her black eyes blazing,
and her jet black hair streaming wildly about her face.

"How strange!" she panted, "that this idea of fortune telling should
have come to me as a means of gaining my living! I was driven to do
something. And that he should have been the very first patron to come to
me--he, of all others! He is tracking me down because I maimed the girl
whom he is so soon to wed--yes, tracking me down to throw me into
prison--and yet he was once my lover! It is always the way. When a man's
heart grows cold to one love, and another's face has charmed him, it
seems to me as though men have a cruel, feverish desire to thrust the
first love from them at whatever cost. But I will be revenged upon hi