* * * * * "She cannot live the night out," said the doctor, sadly. Three weary days and nights had Lora been tossing restlessly in the delirium of fever. Everything that money or skill could do had been done for her, but all to no avail. Now, as they stood around the bed and listened to her wild, delirious ravings, the kind old doctor shook his head and sighed at the sight of so much youth and beauty going down to the grave. "She cannot live the night out," he said again, in a voice of deep feeling. "Can nothing more be done?" asked Howard Templeton, his blue eyes resting sadly on the wreck of the beautiful Lora. "I have done all that the medical art can do," declared the physician, "but all to no avail. She has sustained a terrible shock. Her dreadful tramp through the wind and rain the day she came here was enough to have killed her. But her constitution was a superb one, and I believed that I might have saved her after all, if the child could have been restored to her." "Why did we not think of procuring a substitute for the child?" exclaimed Howard, suddenly. "If we could have put another child in its place might not the innocent deception have saved her life?" "Such a plan might have been tried," said the doctor, thoughtfully. "But it must have been a terrible risk to tell her the truth even after her recovery. She is very nervous, and her organization is high-strung." Even as he spoke, the grayness and pallor of death settled over Lora's beautiful, wasted features. CHAPTER XXI. "My love, you are simply perfect. You look like a bride." Mrs. Carroll spoke enthusiastically, and her daughter flushed brightly with gratified pride and pleasure. She was standing before the long cheval-glass in her dressing-room. She was about to attend a ball at Mrs. Egerton's, and her maid had just put the finishing touches to her toilet. It was no wonder that Mrs. Carroll's admiration had broken out into enthusiastic words. Xenie's loveliness was dazzling, her toilet perfection. She wore a dress of the rarest and costliest cream-white lace over a robe of cream-colored satin. The frosty network of the over-dress was looped here and there with diamond stars. A necklace of diamonds was clasped around her white throat, a diamond star twinkled in the dark waves of her luxuriant hair, and the same rich jewels shone on her breast and at her tiny, shell-like ears. Her dark and brilliant beauty shone forth regally from the costly setting. Her eyes outrivaled the diamonds, her satin skin was as creamily fair as her satin robe, her scarlet lips were like rosebuds touched with dew. No wonder that Mrs. Carroll caught her breath in a kind of ecstacy at the resplendent vision.