nting to Clarence
Vaughan's card, "for dogging me here, and then sending you to attempt
to poison my mind against my best friend? I tell you, I will not
listen!"

A bright spot burned on either cheek, and the little hand resting on
the chair back clinched itself tighter.

Olive Girard drew a step nearer the now angry girl, and searched her
face with grave eyes.

"If I said you were standing on the verge of a horrible precipice,
that your life and soul were in danger, would you listen then?" she
asked, sternly.

"No," said Madeline, doggedly, drawing farther away as she spoke; "not
unless I saw the danger with my own eyes. And in that case I should
not need your warning," she added, dryly.

"And when your own eyes see the danger, it will be too late to avert
it," said Olive, bitterly. "I know your feeling at this moment, and I
know the heartache sure to follow your rashness. _What are you, and
what do you hope or expect to be, to the man you call Lucian Davlin?_"
She spoke his name as if it left the taste of poison in her mouth.

The girl's head dropped until it rested on the hands clasped upon the
chair before her; cold fingers seemed clutched upon her heart. Across
her memory came trooping all his love words of the past, and among
them,--she remembered it now for the first time,--among them all, the
word _wife_ had never once been uttered. In that moment, a thought new
and terrible possessed her soul; a new and baleful light seemed
shining upon the pictures of the past, imparting to each a shameful,
terrible meaning. She uttered a low moan like that of some wounded
animal, and suddenly uplifting her head, turned upon Olive Girard a
face in which passion and a vague terror were strangely mingled.

"What are you saying? What are you _daring_ to say to me!" she
ejaculated, in tones half angry, half terror-stricken, wholly pitiful.
"What horrible thing are you trying to torture me with?"

She would have spoken in indignation, but the new thought in her heart
frightened the wrath from her voice. She dared not say "I am to be his
wife," with these forebodings whispering darkly within her.

She turned away from the one who had conjured up these spectres, and
throwing herself upon a couch, buried her face in the cushions, and
remained in this attitude while Olive answered her and for long
moments after; moments that seemed hours to both.

Olive's eyes were full of pity, and her tone was very gentle. Her
woman's qu