“Oh, Frank, you have roused me to life again!” she moaned. “This story, it actually thrills me with hope! Yet--yet--how foolish I am! How could she be my daughter whose dead face I kissed in the coffin, whom I left in the old family vault among the dead-and-gone Van Dorns? But, oh, if I could only see her face! Do you think you can find her and bring her to me to-morrow?” “I will try,” he replied, but he knew it would be no easy task. It seemed to him that Jessie Lyndon meant to hide herself from him. She closed her eyes and lay still for a few moments, her bosom heaving with excited gasps, the color coming and going on her wasted cheeks. Then she clutched his hand with her cold, damp fingers, crying: “I cannot die till I have seen this girl who has a face like my dead child’s, Frank. Frank, I have a feverish fancy--perhaps a dying fancy! But will you try to gratify it?” “Indeed I will,” he replied heartily. “Bend closer, let me whisper it--for I shouldn’t like Cora or Suzanne to hear, and you will not betray me, will you?” “Never, I promise you!” “It is this: Go early to-morrow to the old family vault at Greenwood, make the sexton open it, and look in that white casket and see if Darling is still there, or--if her father has stolen her away and brought her to life again.” It was the strangest fancy he had ever heard, and it made him shudder to think of that gruesome visit to the old Van Dorn vault, but we can refuse nothing to the dying. “I will do what you wish,” he answered, just in time, for Cora entered at that moment, visibly nervous, but trying hard to conceal the signs of a terrible agitation. She glanced suspiciously from one to the other, crying: “Aunt Verna, how excited you look. I fear you are much worse!” “No, Cora, I feel strangely better, as if Frank’s visit had done me much good.” “It has done me much good, too--made me glad and happy! Oh, aunt, I hope you will get well in time for our wedding next week,” cried Cora, leaning a trembling hand on her betrothed’s shoulder. “Next week!” he cried, with a start of dismay that Cora affected to misunderstand. “Yes, I have arranged to have it next week, for what is the use of any further delay? We have waited long enough, you and I, for our happiness, have we not, dear? So everything is ready for our wedding and flitting next week. And because Aunt Verna is sick it shall be the quietest sort of a ceremony--no wedding breakfast, nor excitement--just a few friends for witnesses, and the marriage in my traveling gown--then the bridal tour. I have even planned that. We will go to California. Shall you not like that, dear?” It made her furious that he grew so deadly pale, that he stammered, when he tried to answer. She guessed with a sick heart that he would get out of it all if he could. “All for the sake of that hateful girl--that Jessie Lyndon, number two, who has again come between me and happiness!” she thought bitterly.