e had been
enticed from home by a villain, and naturally enough her thoughts
reverted to Harper Elliston.

Yet, why should she think of that man? Surely he was not wicked enough
to stoop to anything of this kind.

Nell was not to be left long in suspense, however. The door to her
prison creaked on its hinges, and a man entered and stood confronting
her in the gray light.

It was Harper Elliston.

There was a smile on his sinister countenance, and he stroked his
beard with the coolest insolence imaginable.

"How do you find yourself this morning, my dear?" questioned Elliston
in a low voice.

"This is your work, villain!"

"Hush; don't speak in such a harsh tone, Nell," answered Mr. Elliston,
with a deprecatory wave of the hand. "I cannot permit you to impugn my
motive, Miss Darrel. I claim that all is fair in love and war. You
know from repeated assurances on my part that I love you; once I
wished to make you my wife. Blame me not if I have changed my mind on
that score; it is you who have driven me to it. Nevertheless, I am
constrained to deal justly and kindly with you, my girl, and again
offer to share my New York palace with you. Could anything be more
generous?"

The infamy of his proposition roused all the fire in the nature of
Nell Darrel.

"Harper Elliston, how dare you insult me in this way? Do you imagine
that I would for one moment countenance anything so base? You have
missed your mark if you imagine you can frighten me into consenting to
my own ruin."

"It may be accomplished without your consent."

Such a look as swept his face startled the girl. The hideous nature
of the man was now revealed in all its naked deformity. She shrank
from him as she would have shrunk from a venomous serpent.

He continued to smile and stroke his glossy beard.

"You see how it is, my dear," he proceeded. "The wisest thing you can
do is to submit to the inevitable."

He advanced as lie spoke.

She recoiled with a shudder of wild alarm.

"Back, scoundrel! Do not touch me!" she cried, warningly, an
indignant, perhaps dangerous, fire blazing in her eye.

Again the demon laughed.

"You seem to take my love-making hard, Miss Darrel."

"Not another step," warned Nell.

"Ho! ho! ho! Would you try to frighten me? You can't do that, I've
tamed more than one such as you. Come, be sensible, and let me have
one kiss at least."

Again he advanced.

CLICK!

Harper Elliston uttered a low yet startled cry and