No one noticed Pluma's anxiety. One moment hushed and laughing, the queen of mirth and revelry, then pale and silent, with shadowed eyes, furtively glancing down the broad, pebbled path that led to the entrance gate. Yet, despite her bravery, Pluma's face and lips turned white when she heard the confusion of her lover's arrival. Perhaps Pluma had never suffered more suspense in all her life than was crowded into those few moments. Had he seen Lester Stanwick? Had he come to denounce her for her treachery, in his proud, clear voice, and declare the marriage broken off? She dared not step forward to greet him, lest the piercing glance of his eyes would cause her to fall fainting at his feet. "A guilty conscience needs no accuser." Most truly the words were exemplified in her case. Yet not one pang of remorse swept across her proud heart when she thought of the young girl whose life she had so skillfully blighted. What was the love of Daisy Brooks, an unsophisticated child of nature, only the overseer's niece, compared to her own mighty, absorbing passion? The proud, haughty heiress could not understand how Rex, polished, courteous and refined, could have stooped to such a reckless folly. He would thank her in years to come for sparing him from such a fate. These were the thoughts she sought to console herself with. She stood near the door when he entered, but he did not see her; a death-like pallor swept over her face, her dark eyes had a wild, perplexing look. She was waiting in terrible suspense for Rex to call upon her name; ask where she was, or speak some word in which she could read her sentence of happiness or despair in the tone of his voice. She could not even catch the expression of his face; it was turned from her. She watched him so eagerly she hardly dared draw her breath. Rex walked quickly through the room, stopping to chat with this one or that one a moment; still, his face was not turned for a single instant toward the spot where she stood. Was he looking for her? She could not tell. Presently he walked toward the conservatory, and a moment later Eve Glenn came tripping toward her. "Oh, here you are!" she cried, flinging her arms about her in regular school-girl _abandon_, and kissing the cold, proud mouth, that deigned no answering caress. "Rex has been looking for you everywhere, and at last commissioned me to find you and say he wants to speak to you. He is out on the terrace." How she longed to ask if Rex's face was smiling or stern, but she dared not. "Where did you say Rex was, Miss Glenn?" "I said he was out on the terrace; but don't call me Miss Glenn, for pity's sake--it sounds so freezingly cold. Won't you please call me Eve," cried the impetuous girl--"simply plain Eve? That has a more friendly sound, you know." Another girl less proud than the haughty heiress would have kissed Eve's pretty, piquant, upturned, roguish face. "What did Rex have to say to her?" she asked herself, in growing dread.