"I will not tell you," she answered, defiantly, but with a little shiver of dread. What if he had seen her when she found it on the sands? "Very well; you shall not stay out longer with it, at least. Granted that we are deadly foes--still I have a man's heart in my breast. I would not willingly see a woman perish. Go home, Xenie, and care for your mother. I will undertake the search for Lora. If I find her you shall know it immediately. I promise you." He took the heavy cloak from his own shoulders and fastened it around her shivering form. She did not seem to notice the action, but stood still mechanically, her dark, tearful eyes fixed on the mist-crowned sea. He followed her gaze, and said in a quick tone of horror: "You do not believe she is in there? It would be too horrible!" "Oh, my God!" Mrs. St. John groaned, with a quiver of awful dread in her voice. He shivered through all his strong, lithe young frame. The thought of such a death was terrible to him. "You said she was ill and delirious?" he said, abruptly. "Yes," she wailed. "Poor Lora--poor little Lora!" he exclaimed, with a sudden tone of pity. "Alas! is it not too probable that she has met her death in those fatal waves?" "Oh, she could not, she could not," Xenie moaned, wildly. "She hated the sea. Her lover was drowned in it. She could not bear the sight or the sound of it." He did not answer for a moment. He was looking away from her with a great, solemn dread and pity in his beautiful, blue eyes. Suddenly he said, abruptly: "Go home, Mrs. St. John, and stay there until you hear news. I will go and arouse the village. I will have help in the search, and if she is found we will bring her home. If she is not, God help you, for I fear she has drowned herself in the sea." With a long, moaning cry of anguish, Xenie turned from him and sped along the wet sand back to her mother. Howard Templeton watched the flying figure on its way with a grave trouble in his handsome face, and when she was out of sight, he turned in an opposite direction and walked briskly along the sand, looking carefully in every direction. "They talk of judgment," he muttered. "Has God sent this dreadful thing upon Xenie St. John for her sinful plans? If it is so, surely it will bring her to repentance. In the face of such a terrible affliction, she must surely be afraid to persist in attempting such a stupendous fraud." CHAPTER XVI. Half dead with weariness and sorrow, Mrs. St. John staggered into her mother's presence with the wailing infant in her arms. She sank down upon the floor by the side of the couch and laid the child on her mother's breast, moaning out: "I found him down there, lying on the wet sand all alone, mamma--all alone! Oh! Lora, Lora!" A heart-rending moan broke from Mrs. Carroll's lips. Her face was gray and death-like in the chill morning light. She closed her arms around the babe and strained it fondly to her breast.