tanding there with no one in the
room but myself she steadied herself up as one who is conscious that all
the storms of heaven are about to break upon her; and turning slowly
to the door waited with arms crossed and a still determination upon her
brow, the coming of the feet of him whose resolve she felt must have, as
yet been only strengthened by her resistance.

She had not long to wait. Almost with the closing of the street door
upon the detectives and their prisoners, Mr. Blake followed by Mrs.
Daniels and another lady whose thick veil and long cloak but illy
concealed the patrician features and stately form of the Countess De
Mirac, entered the room.

The surprise had its effect; Luttra was evidently for the moment thrown
off her guard.

"Mrs. Daniels!" she breathed, holding out her hands with a longing
gesture.

"My dear mistress!" returned that good woman, taking those hands in hers
but in a respectful way that proved the constraint imposed upon her by
Mr. Blake's presence. "Do I see you again and safe?"

"You must have thought I cared little for the anxiety you would be sure
to feel," said that fair young mistress, gazing with earnestness into
the glad but tearful eyes of the housekeeper. "But indeed, I have
been in no position to communicate with you, nor could I do so without
risking that to protect which I so outraged my feelings as to leave the
house at all. I mean the life and welfare of its master, Mrs. Daniels."

"Ha, what is that?" quoth Mr. Blake. "It was to save me, you consented
to follow them?"

"Yes; what else would have led me to such an action? They might have
killed me, I would not have cared, but when they began to utter threats
against you--"

"Mrs. Blake," exclaimed Mrs. Daniels, catching hold of her mistress's
uplifted hand, and pointing to a scar that slightly disfigured her white
arm a little above the wrist, "Mrs. Blake, what's that?"

A pink flush, the first I had seen on her usually pale countenance, rose
for an instant to her cheeks, and she seemed to hesitate.

"It was not there when I last saw you, Mrs. Blake."

"No," was the slow reply, "I found myself forced that night to inflict
upon myself a little wound. It is nothing, let it go."

"No, Luttra I cannot let it go," said her husband, advancing towards her
with something like gentle command. "I must hear not only about this but
all the other occurrences of that night. How came they to find you in
the refuge you had at