"But there _was_ a child," persisted Captain Mainwaring. "Lora would not have deceived me." "Not willfully, I know, but she was mistaken, I tell you," was the passionate response. "I do not believe you, Mrs. St. John. You are trying to deceive me for some purpose of your own. You kept my wife from me, and you would fain keep my child, also. You have hidden it away from me! Nay, I believe on my soul that it is my child you hold in your arms and claim as your own. Give it to me," he cried, advancing upon her. But she retreated from him in terror. "Never! never!" she cried out, in a passionate voice. "Xenie, Xenie!" cried Howard Templeton, advancing sternly, "do not stain your soul longer with such a horrible falsehood. Give Jack Mainwaring the child! You well know that it is his and Lora's own!" CHAPTER XXV. Xenie St. John turned with a half-stifled shriek and looked at the daring intruder. She saw her enemy standing in the center of the room looking down at her from his princely hight with a lightning flash of scorn in his bright blue eyes, his lips set sternly under his curling blonde mustache. He was elegantly attired in the most fashionable morning costume, and his fair, proud Saxon beauty had never appeared more striking. Xenie's dark eyes flashed their gaze into his blue ones with a blaze of passionate defiance. "How dare you say so?" she cried, stamping her small, slippered foot upon the rich carpet with angry vehemence. "Are you mad, Howard Templeton?" He stood still, folding his arms across his broad breast, regarding her with a steady calmness strangely at variance with her passionate vehemence. "No, I am not mad," he answered, in low, even tones, while his blue eyes gazed strangely into her own--"I am not mad, and I dare assert nothing but what I know to be the truth. So I repeat what I said to you just now. Give Captain Mainwaring the innocent little child in whose name you have perpetrated such a monstrous fraud. It is his child and your sister's. I will prove it, and swear to it if necessary, before any court in the land." The calm and steady assurance of his words and looks and tones struck Xenie with inward terror. Yet it seemed to her impossible that Howard Templeton could really know the truth. Her heart quaked with terror, yet she tried to brave it out in very desperation. "How dare you say so?" she repeated, but her voice faltered, and she trembled so that she could scarcely hold the little child in her arms. Mrs. Carroll crept to her side and stood there dumbly, filled with a yearning desire to help Xenie and shield her from the consequences of her sin, but so horror-stricken that she could not even speak. Howard Templeton regarded Xenie with a look of scornful amazement.