"I will scold Liane, and whip her, too. I will do anything to please you, beautiful lady!" No wonder! Roma was bitterly sorry now that she had not let granny kill Liane when she had been so anxious to do it. She felt that she had made a great mistake, for her position at Cliffdene would never be assured until Liane was dead. Edmund Clarke was certain now that Liane was his own child, and he swore to Doctor Jay that he would find her soon, if it took the last dollar of his fortune. The old doctor replied: "I do not blame you, my friend, for it does, indeed, appear plausible that this Liane Lester must be your own lost child, and I can conceive how galling it must be to your pride to call Nurse Jenks' grandchild your daughter, while, as for your noble wife, it is cruel to think of the imposition practiced on her motherly love all these years. But it is certain that she must have died but for the terrible deception we had to practice." Edmund Clarke knew that it was true. He remembered how she had been drifting from him out on the waves of the shoreless sea, and how the piping cry of the little infant had called her back to life and hope. "Yes, it was a terrible necessity," he groaned, adding: "And only think, dear doctor, how sad it is that Roma, with a devilish cunning, that must be a keen instinct, has always hated sweet Liane, and has succeeded in poisoning my wife's mind against her, arousing a mean jealousy in my uncomprehended interest in the girl! Think of such a sweet mother being set against her own sweet daughter!" "It is horrible," assented Doctor Jay, and he continued: "But this excitement is telling on your nerves, dear friend, weakened by your recent severe illness. Let me persuade you to retire to bed, with a sedative now, and to-morrow we will further discuss your plan of employing a detective to trace Liane and the fiendish Nurse Jenks." "I believe I will take your advice," Roma heard Edmund Clarke respond wearily, and Doctor Jay insisted on preparing a sedative, which he said should be mixed in a glass of water, half the dose to be taken on retiring, and the remainder in two hours, if the patient proved wakeful. "I wish it was a dose of poison," Roma thought vindictively, as she hurried from the room and gained her own unperceived, where she found her maid waiting most impatiently to assist her in her bath. "Never mind, Dolly, you can go to bed now. I went to mamma's room for a little chat, and we talked longer than I expected, so I will wait on myself this once," she said, with unwonted kindness in her eagerness to be alone; so Dolly curtsied and retired, though she said to herself: "She is lying. She was not in her mother's room at all, for I went there to see, and Mrs. Clarke had retired. She must have been up to some mischief and don't want to be found out. She had a guilty look."