ting her eyes to his face.

"Then, promise us that you will let us help to right your wrongs, and
that you will come back, like a good sister, and stay with Mrs.
Girard."

Her face hardened. "I can not," she said, briefly.

"You will not," seriously.

No answer.

"Madeline, what is it you wish to do?"

"What I wish to do, I can not. I can tell you what I intend to do,"
sitting very erect.

"Then what do you intend?"

"I intend," turning her eyes away from them both, and fixing them
moodily upon the fire, "to follow up the path in which I have set my
feet. I intend to oust a base adventuress from the home that was my
mother's; to wrest the fortune that is mine from the grasp of a bad
old man, and make him suffer for the wrong he did my mother. I intend
to laugh at Lucian Davlin, when he is safe behind prison bars; to hunt
down and frustrate an impostor, and by so doing, clear the name of
Philip Girard before all the world." Her voice was low, but very firm,
dogged almost, in its tone.

He turned a perplexed face toward Olive.

"What does it all mean?" he asked.

"What she says," replied Mrs. Girard, flushing with suppressed
excitement. "She has found a clue that may lead to Philip's release."

He moved nearer to the girl, and taking her hand, drew her toward him,
until she faced him. "Madeline, is this true?"

"Yes."

"And you will hold me to a promise not to lift a hand to help clear
the name of my friend?" reproachfully.

"Yes," unflinchingly.

"Are you doing right, my sister?"

She attempted to draw away her hand.

"Child, what can you do?"

She turned her eyes toward Olive. "She will tell you what I have done.
I can do much more."

Olive came suddenly to her side. "Oh, Madeline!" she said, "let him
take all this into his hands. It is not fit work for you. It will
harden you, make you bitter, and--"

Madeline wrested her hand away and sprang up, standing before them
flushed and goaded into bitterness.

"Yes," she cried, wildly, "I know; you need not say it. It will harden
me; it has already. It will make me bitter and bad, unfit for your
society, unworthy of your friendship. I shall be a liar, a spy, a
hypocrite--but I shall succeed. You see, you were wrong in offering me
your friendship, Doctor Vaughan. I shall not be worthy to be called
your sister, but," brokenly, "you need not have feared. I never
intended to presume upon your friendship; I never intended to trouble
you after--after