"Uncle, dear," she says, in a strange, low voice, "tell me where to find Mr. Charteris." He starts, guiltily, it seems to her. His fingers close over a slip of paper in his hand. "You want Vane--oh, ah, yes, of course," he says, confusedly. "What can you want of Vane?" She smiles sadly to herself. Her own husband, yet "what can she want of him." "A matter of business, sir," she replies, with cold brevity. "Business!" He glances up and sees how white and strange her face is. "Is it important? It will wait, won't it?" "No; it's a matter of life and death," she says, with trembling lips. "Life and death? You are jesting, child, surely. I am very sorry, dear, but Vane has just sent me a line. He has gone--I mean he has been called away suddenly. He may be compelled to remain some time. You will have to be satisfied with my poor society. Vane sent you his love, and regrets that he could not bid you farewell." A slight, cold smile touches the scarlet lips that curl in faint scorn. "Do not fib to me, Uncle Langton. You know very well he sent me no such message. Let me see that note." She draws it deliberately out of his fingers, and reads the curt message: "Mr. Langton, I am about going away as we agreed upon. I will write you from abroad. Invent some excuse to satisfy the curiosity of Reine." "So that is the love he sent me," she says, looking at him with reproachful, dark eyes. "How charmingly affectionate he is! Aren't you afraid that you'll never get to Heaven, Uncle Langton, after that tremendous fib?" "Don't tease, child, I have vexation enough. I did not think it of Charteris, really. I wish now I hadn't----" he stops and gnaws his gray mustache, fiercely. "I wish so, too," she says, with subdued bitterness. "It was a sad mistake all round. It cannot be helped now. But, uncle, I _must_ see him. Tell me where to find him." "You may find him in New York to-morrow. He left on the ten o'clock train to-day." "This is dreadful--poor Maud," she says, incoherently. "Oh, uncle, Maud is up-stairs. She prays you to see her. Uncle, you _must_. She has no one to turn to but you. The shadow of a terrible crime is hanging over her head. She must go to prison unless something happens to help her." "She has made her bed, so let her lie," he says, petulantly. "Oh, uncle, you must forgive her and befriend her; say that you will." "I won't," he says, with bitter brevity. "Let her come to you for five minutes; she can plead her own cause better than I can." "I decline to see her. Tell her so. Tell her I will never have anything more to do with her," he replies, sternly, leading her to the door, and shutting her out into the hall. She goes back to her cousin, stumbling over Nellie, who is crouched outside the door, dreading to enter with the story of her non-success. "He will see me?" Maud says, hopefully, as she enters. "I am very sorry, dear, but he utterly declines," Reine says, sorrowfully.