"Ah, I see that you begin to realize your position," he said, icily. "What is your revenge worth now in this moment of your deadly peril? Is it dearer to you than your life?" "Yes, it is dearer to me than my life," she answered, steadily. "If nothing but my life would buy revenge for me I would give it freely!" He regarded her a moment with a proud, silent scorn. She returned the gaze with interest, but even in her passionate anger and hatred she could not help owning to her secret heart that she had never seen him looking so handsome as he did just then in the rough but well-fitting tweed suit, with the glow of the morning on his fair face, and that light of scorn in his dark-blue eyes. Suddenly he spoke: "Well, go your way, Xenie St. John. You are in my way, but it is not by this means I will remove you from it. I am not a murderer--your life is safe from my vengeance. Yet I warn you not to go further in your wild scheme of vengeance against me. It can only result in disaster to yourself. I am forewarned of your intentions and your wicked plot. You can never wrest from me the inheritance that Uncle John intended for me!" "We shall see!" she answered, with bold defiance, undaunted by his threatening words. Then, as the little babe in her arms began to moan pitifully again, she remembered the dreadful trouble that had sent her out into the rain, and turning from him with a sudden wail of grief, she began to run along the shore, looking wildly around for some trace of the lost one. She heard Howard's footsteps behind her, and redoubled her speed, but in a minute his hand fell on her shoulder, arresting her flight. He spoke hastily: "I heard you calling for Lora before I met you--speak, tell me if she also is wandering out here like a madwoman, and why?" She turned on him fiercely. "What does it matter to you, Howard Templeton?" "If she is lost I can help you to find her," he retorted. "What can you do? A frail woman wandering in the rain with a helpless babe in your arms!" Bitterly as she hated him, an overpowering sense of the truth of his words rushed over her. She hated that he should help her and yet she could not let her own angry scruples stand in the way of finding Lora. She looked up at him and the hot tears brimmed over in her black eyes and splashed upon her white cheeks. "Lora is missing," she answered, in a broken voice. "She has been ill, and last night she wandered in her mind. This morning while mamma and I slept she must have stolen away in her delirium. Mamma was prostrated by the shock, and I came out alone to find her." "You should have left the child at home. It will perish in the rain and cold," he said, looking at her keenly. She shivered and grew white as death, but pressed the babe closer to her breast that the warmth of her own heart might protect its tender life. "Why did you bring the child?" he persisted, still watching her keenly.