rrel took in
the situation nevertheless--a train was thundering down upon him.

A minute more and he would be doomed!

He tried to move--to roll from the track. He could not. His limbs
seemed paralyzed. Another second and the train would be upon him!

CHAPTER XXV.

SAVED!

Professor Ruggles had not been remiss in his judgment. It was Madge
Scarlet who stole his victim from his arms almost in the hour of his
devilish triumph. She did not get on the train from the little way
station, however. She was on the train when it drew out of the great
city by the lake, but the scheming Ruggles knew it not.

She, too, wore a veil, and was otherwise disguised, and managed not to
show herself to the man she had once called friend. Immediately on her
release from jail she began to watch Ruggles, who kept himself out of
the way, or walked the streets only in disguise.

She haunted the depots of the city, and was lucky enough to see him
when he took passage. Quietly boarding the same train, she bided her
time, intent on gaining possession of the detective's sister for
purposes of her own.

The fires of insanity were already burning in the brain of the
convict's wife.

Revenge for past wrongs seemed the sole object of her life now, and
this was the incentive that placed her on the track of a fleeing
villain and his intended victim.

Madge saw Ruggles when he left the car. She watched her opportunity,
and lifting the partially insensible girl, bore her swiftly to the
outside, as the train halted for a minute.

She gave vent to a chuckle as the train went thundering on its course.

She had passed from the cars on the opposite side from the depot, and
consequently was able to elude the gaze of the depot agent.

Along the track she went, pausing at times to rest, until she was
fully a mile from the station. In the shadow of a clump of trees the
hag came to a halt and deposited her burden on the ground.

A moan from the drugged and helpless Nell reached her ears.

And then Mrs. Scarlet chuckled the louder.

"Good; she's coming out of her bad spell. I want her to realize her
fate, else there wouldn't be the least bit of pleasure in my revenge."

Removing veil and light cloak, Mrs. Scarlet gazed down into the pallid
face of poor Nell, with only hatred gleaming from her sunken, beady
eyes.

"Ho! I've outwitted the master devil himself, and now I will have you
all to myself, to deal with in a way that will cut to th