"Then," pursues the Professor, puffing away tranquilly, "she comes straight from this interview and meets me, to whom she says that, 'It is a most deplorable and dangerous case; that he is really liable to attack me or Henry at any moment; that I must take every precaution and guard against his sudden attack, even if I were forced to confine him still more closely; and that she had suspected him of partial insanity long ago.' Now, what do you think of that?" Precisely what he thought it was not Mr. Davlin's intention to tell. One idea, however, he expressed promptly enough: "I think," he said, leaning a little forward and looking full at his companion, "that you had better take the advice of Miss Payne. Confine him close, the closer the better; but don't drug him any more at present!" The Professor nodded serenely as he said: "Right, quite right. Just what I was about to suggest." He might have added that he had resolved upon taking the course indicated, even if the suggestion had not been made. "The young lady holds the winning cards," he had assured himself. "I will take her orders before I get myself in too deep!" His "too deep" meant deep as the grave. And now Lucian had a new subject for conjecture. If Miss Payne proposed to appoint for herself a guardian, who would she select? Who had been caring for her during all these months? Was it man or woman? The only information she had volunteered had been implied rather than spoken. In answer to Miss Arthur's rather abrupt query at the breakfast table, as to how she had managed to prosper so well in a strange city where she had no friends, the girl had replied, with a little laugh: "I suppose it has never occurred to either yourself or Mr. Arthur that I might have found out some of my mother's friends. I was put in possession of my mother's journal on the very day that I ran away from Oakley. I am not so friendless as you may think." Lucian was again puzzled, but knowing the girl as he did, he was not prepared to believe that a guardian, in the form of a lover, would appear. He was now convinced that Cora, whom at first he had somewhat doubted, was not for some unknown reason attempting to deceive him. The Professor's story had corroborated hers, and given him, as he expressed it, "a fresh point" in his game. But alas for Lucian! Every fancied discovery only beguiled him farther and farther from the truth, and rendered him more and more blind to the chains that were being forged about him. CHAPTER XLI. THE DAYS PASS BY. Several days passed and still Lucian Davlin had not found the much wished for opportunity to converse with Madeline. Neither had he been able to find Cora alone. Visit her room when he would, there was the burly waiting-maid. Finally Cora had warned him, with some asperity, that his "actions looked rather suspicious," and then he obeyed her gentle hint and remained aloof.