Cora sat like one in a nightmare. Percy was conscious of but one feeling. True to his nature even here, he was staring at this vision of beauty, thinking only, "how lovely! how lovely!" And Lucian Davlin? At the first sight of that face, the first sound of that voice, he had felt as if turning to stone, incapable of movement or speech. At that moment, had Cora once glanced toward him, his face must have betrayed his secret. But her eyes were fixed on Madeline. Davlin felt a tempest raging within his bosom. Madeline alive! This glowing, brilliant, richly robed, queenly creature--Madeline! Again in his ears rang her farewell words. Quick as lightning came the thought: she was his enemy, she would denounce him! And yet, throughout every fiber of his being, he felt a thrill of gladness. Again there surged in his heart the mad love that had sprung into being when she had so gloriously defied him. She was not dead, and he was glad! Old Hagar had closed the door after her young mistress; and now she stood near it, calm and immovable as a block of ice. Madeline Payne stood, for a moment, gazing laughingly into the amazed face of the spinster. Then she said: "Come, come, Aunt Ellen, don't stare at me as if I were a ghost! Introduce me to your friends. Is this lady my new step-mamma?" Cora roused herself from her stupor, and said, haughtily: "I am _Mrs. Arthur_, and the mistress of the house!" "Ah! then you _are_ my new step-mamma? And you have been very ill, I understand. Pray, don't rise, madame; you look feeble." Then, turning again to Miss Arthur: "Don't you intend to speak to me, Aunt Ellen?" "But," gasped the spinster, "I thought, that--you--" "Oh, I see! You thought that I was dead, and you have been grieving for me. Well, I will explain: I ran away from my respected papa because he had selected for me a husband not at all to my taste. Not desiring to return immediately, I seized an opportunity that came in my way, and bestowed my name upon a poor girl who died in the hospital, thus making sure that my anxious friends would abandon all search for me. However, I have thought better of my decision, and so I return to my own home to take my position under the _chaperonage_ of my pretty step-mamma, as the _Heiress of Oakley_!" These last words opened the eyes of Cora to the new "situation." Springing to her feet, she forgot for the moment all her weakness, and cried, wrathfully: "You cannot come here with such a trumped-up story! Madeline Payne is dead and buried. You are a base impostor!" Madeline turned tranquilly towards the spinster. "Aunt Ellen, _am_ I an impostor?" "No," said Ellen Arthur, sullenly; "you are Madeline Payne. Any one in the village could testify to that." Madeline turned to Cora. "Step-mamma, I forgive you. It _is_ hard to find the entailed estate of Oakley slipping out of your hands, no doubt, but this world is full of disappointments."