Senator Garston’s face was sternly composed that night as he indited his invitation to the rising young banker to join him at the Plaza. “Katie Norreys can soon twist him around her slim, white fingers—he is young and rash,” the cold-hearted millionaire mused. “I am safe in Margaret’s silence. My money will talk. My record is safe. I have made my calling and election sure. I’ll get Vreeland into the fair Katie’s hands. “A little money will help. He shall be turned away from Margaret. Once that I have the girl, then Margaret will surely soften—for that child’s sake. _By God! I’ll buy the girl’s heart!_ I have money enough, and I’ll outbid even Mrs. Elaine Willoughby.” The Senator-elect felt a new glow in his heart, the ardor of a wolf-like chase, an untiring chase, for love, passion, and vengeance carried him on. “I’ll live to laugh at her heroics yet,” he cried, “for I will bring her into camp. _I am not accustomed to fail._” He was resolute now. The lights were gleaming golden in the Circassia when a pale-faced woman crept back to the splendors of the pearl boudoir. No one had marked Senator James Garston’s visit to Lakemere, and the two caretakers—man and wife—marveled at their mistress’ agitation when she bade them escort her back to New York City. The gardener summoned to watch over the lonely mansion grumbled: “I never saw her look like that.” For the brave woman was now “paying the price.” It was the reflex swing of the pendulum of Life. Could the three humble servitors have heard the accusing cry of Elaine Willoughby’s heart they would have known the anguish of a stricken woman’s arraignment of Providence. “And he—oh, my God! _He prospers_, while my child is taken from me! Is this the price of my mother’s love, my empty heart, my vacant home, my death in life!” It seemed as if God had spared the wrongdoer to smite her quivering mother heart. Dr. Hugo Alberg and the stolid-faced Martha Wilmot were busily whispering in a corner of Mrs. Willoughby’s sick room that night long after midnight had sounded on the frosty air. For, relaxed and broken by the enforced bravery of her struggle with the father of her lost child, the Lady of Lakemere had crept, bruised and wounded in soul, back to die or live, she cared not, in the peopled wilderness of the two million souls who envied her the lonely luxuries of her life. “She has had one dose,” whispered Alberg. “She is dead safe to sleep till three o’clock. Give her this chloral carefully then. Get your work done as soon as you can, and at eight o’clock your expected telegram will call you away. The French woman will watch till the new nurse comes. You have seen young Vreeland?” The Doctor’s eyes glowed like live coals. “Yes,” she whispered. “_It’s all right_,” and her fingers tightly closed on the vial. “I am to meet him at the ferry. _The boat sails at eleven._ It will be all right.” Dr. Alberg passed out of the sick-room, and Justine Duprez followed him down the stair.