Matthew Kelvin was indeed very ill--worse, perhaps, than Olive Deane had thought he would be. But, on the other hand, had he not been very ill, no valid necessity would have existed for Olive to accompany him home. He was grateful to her for offering to go with him. It was much nicer to have Olive by his side than one of the Stammars footmen. He had no strength to talk; but they had hardly got out of the park, and well on to the high road that led to Pembridge, when he took one of Olive's cool hands in both his, and let his head droop on to her shoulder. "Are you in great pain, dear?" she whispered. She had never called him _dear_ before. "It is rather hard to bear," said he, squeezing her hand tightly. Presently he became aware that she was crying. "Don't cry, Olive," he said. But she could not help it. It made her cry to see him suffer so much; but none the more on that account did she waver for a single moment in her determination to carry out the scheme on which her mind was so firmly bent. CHAPTER IX. THE STORY OF THE WRECK. Max Van Duren was accepted on probation as a suitor for the hand of Miss Byrne. Everything now depended on Miriam's ability to carry out the programme laid down for her by her father. The task thus set before her was repugnant to her feelings in many ways, and yet there was a strange sort of fascination in the thought that she alone had power enough over this man to draw from him a secret that he would reveal to no living soul else. But it was requisite that even she should go to work very carefully in the matter. It was requisite that not the slightest suspicion as to her motives should be aroused in Van Duren's naturally suspicious mind. Time and patience were essentially necessary. To have seemed anxious, or in a hurry, would have defeated everything. Thus it fell out that, nearly every evening when he was in town, Max Van Duren was admitted for an hour to the society of the woman to whose love-spells he had fallen so easy a victim. It could have been no greater surprise to any one than it was to himself to find such toils woven so strongly about him--to find himself, at fifty years of age, and with all his hard worldly experience, as weak as any school boy before the foolish witchery of a pretty face.