Doctor Vaughan laughed. "Well, won't you shake hands with an American of no special importance, Celine Leroque?" She placed her hand in his and then drew forward a chair. "I hope you found no difficulty in getting out to-night?" he said, sitting down and looking at her with a half-amused, half-grave countenance. "None whatever; I have been suffering with a sick-headache all day." "And you can get in again unseen?" "Easily; in the evening the servants are all below stairs." "But what an odd disguise! Do they never question your blue glasses?" "Not half so much as they would question the eyes without them. They believe my eyes were ruined by close application to fine needle-work. And then--" she pushed up the glasses a trifle, and he saw that the eyelid, and a line underneath the eye, were artistically _rouged_--"they all acknowledge that my eyes look very weak." "I fancy they'll find those eyes have looked too sharply for them, by and by." She laughed lightly. "I hope so." Sitting there in her prim disguise, the girl felt glad to gaze upon him; felt as if, look as much as she would, she was gazing from a safe distance. Dr. Vaughan came straight to the point of his visit, beginning by requesting a repetition of such portion of the facts she had discovered as related most particularly to the two men, Davlin and Percy. Then he made his suggestion. To his surprise it was a welcome one to the girl. "That is just what I have had in mind," she said, thoughtfully. "After reflecting, I have changed my plans somewhat, and I don't see my way quite so clearly as before." He was looking at her attentively, but asked no questions. "Since I came from the city," she resumed, with some hesitation, "I have thought that I would be glad to talk again with all of you. But it won't do to incur the risk of more absences, for if I do not mistake the signs, things will be pretty lively up there," nodding in the direction of Oakley, "before many days. So perhaps we had better see what our two heads can develop in the way of counterplot, and you can make known the result to Olive." "If your own invention will not serve, I fear mine will be at an utter loss. But you know how glad I shall be to share your confidence." "My invention must serve," she said, firmly, and quite ignoring the latter clause of his speech; "and so must yours. You see, my plan before going to the city was a comparatively simple one. I intended to work my way into the confidence of Mrs. John Arthur. Failing in that, Hagar must have been reinstated, and then the _denouement_ would have been easy: to get possession of specimens of the medicine prescribed for Mr. Arthur; to hunt down this sham doctor they are to introduce into the house; to show John Arthur the manner of wife he has; to make my own terms with him, and then expose and turn out the whole pack. But all this must be changed." "Changed? And how?"