"Kind to you," Lady Vera repeats, in her faint, but cutting voice, gazing at her cringing suppliant. "Were you kind to me in my sore distress and misery when my mother lay dead in her grave, and I had no one to turn to but you in my bitter desolation and despair? Were you kind and loving to your friendless bride then, in her poverty and woe? No! and it is not Vera Campbell you seek to win now. It is Lady Fairvale, of Fairvale, countess in her own right, with thirty thousand pounds a year. You see, I understand the value of your vapid protestations of love and repentance." "You mistake me, Lady Vera, in attributing mercenary motives to me," he answers, with pretended sadness and grief. "I love you for yourself alone. I am very rich still, although not so wealthy as you are. I am not yet too poor to woo you as a royal lover. See, my darling, I bring you jewels fine enough for a queen--jewels that even your grandeur need not disdain; diamonds bright as your eyes, pearls as fair as your milk-white skin." He has drawn two jewel caskets from his breast, and unlocks them before her wondering eyes. The diamonds flash in the light, seeming to fill the gloomy room with sunshine, the large, pale pearls shine with the lustrous whiteness of the moon's chill rays. His eyes shine as he looks into her face to note the effect. Surely such an offering as this must win her back even from the portals of death to be his own. These must win her love for him, surely. No fair woman ever turned her back on the donor of such sparkling, flashing, burning diamonds, such moon-white, gleaming pearls. But as he gazes triumphantly into her eyes, her lips curl, she recoils in scorn and aversion. "I spurn both you and your offerings," she answers, quickly. "They are poor Ivy Cleveland's diamonds and pearls. Oh, how could you be so mean and vile as to rob that poor girl of her jewels now, when already bereft of the jewel of honor?" "They are not Ivy's jewels," he answers. "I bought them for you to-day in London. Do you think I would offer you aught that had belonged to that woman who had wronged you?" "Liar! Coward! Robber!" cries a voice of raging hate and jealousy, and like a sudden vision, Ivy Cleveland appears among them, her golden tresses flying in disorder, her face livid with passion, her blue eyes blazing with wrath, in her clenched, white hand, a tiny, gleaming pistol, like a pretty toy. "Liar! Coward! Robber! I will have your life for my wrongs," she shrieks, and the gleaming pistol covers his heart, there is a terrible report, a flash of thick smoke, and with a cry of horror, Leslie Noble leaps into the air and falls backward--dead! "He is dead, but I have my jewels again!" the murderess cries, with maniacal triumph, gathering the fallen jewels to her breast and exulting wildly over them.