Lady Elaine did not quite like the arrangement, but it was perhaps the best that could be made under the circumstances. It almost appeared that she and her maid were living in a house to which Viscount Rivington alone had legal right. However, she paid him the amount of money he claimed to have disbursed upon her account, and thanked him warmly for the great trouble he had taken in all matters concerning herself. “I do not think that I shall willingly trespass further upon your kindness,” she told him. “My life is already mapped out, and I shall be content to spend it quietly between the four walls of yonder garden until hope breaks through the dark clouds of the future.” “Time will dull the edge of your sorrow,” he said, gently, but with a sense of bitter defeat gnawing at his heart. Her very words, the mournful sadness in her tones, sounded the death knell to his hopes. “You cannot live here always--you, the loveliest girl in England--the daughter of an earl! Oh, Lady Elaine, it is impossible!” He spoke almost passionately. “I have no other choice--no other wish--until my lover comes back to me,” she said. The viscount turned away to hide the disappointment--the fury in his eyes. “Good-by,” he said, suddenly. “I will send you my address to your new home in a few days. You will take possession at once?” “To-morrow,” replied Lady Elaine. “Nina is engaging a servant to-day.” He went away--a raging demon in his heart. “Lady Gaynor was right,” he said to himself. “Force and questionable means must be employed or I am a ruined man! But I have my bird safely caged. She cannot escape me; she shall not, by Heaven! Now have I to conciliate the vampires who seek for my heart’s blood--to prove to them that Lady Elaine is under my protection--living in my house. I know that I no longer belong to myself, and that my life is a living death--all for what?--Money! Money! And when I have humbled myself to these birds of prey, whose talons are red with the blood of human hearts, I have to turn toward that old dotard--the Duke of Rothwell, and lie and fawn to him--for what?--Money! Money!” He ground his teeth with impotent fury, sprang into a cab, and ordered the driver to take him to Oxford Circus, where we will leave him. In the course of a few days Lady Elaine Seabright was comfortably installed in her new home, and then commenced a weary time of waiting. Two or three of the curious-minded neighbors called at the villa, but she declined to see them. The efforts of the clergyman who claimed that respective district were equally futile, and nearly three weeks passed without one word from Viscount Rivington. Then a letter reached her from the Duke of Rothwell’s country seat. The viscount professed that he had been unable to go to Scotland on account of his uncle’s indisposition. She made no reply to this, and appeared to be growing thinner and whiter every day to the eyes of the watchful Nina.