“It is well,” she said. “Now read the letter. The message has come at last!” Lady Wynde seized the letter eagerly. It contained only these words, without date or signature: “_The time has come to get rid of him!_ Now!” CHAPTER III. A FATEFUL MOVE DECIDED UPON. Notwithstanding that the sinister message, contained in the single line of the mysterious missive brought to Lady Wynde by her gray companion, had been long expected, it brought with it none the less a shock when it came. The paper fluttered slowly from the unloosed fingers of the baronet’s wife to the floor, and into the liquid black eyes stole a look half of horror and half of eagerness. Unconsciously her voice repeated the words of the message, in a hoarse whisper: “_It is time to get rid of him._ Now!” Lady Wynde shuddered at the sound of her own voice, and she stared at her gray companion, her eyes full of shrinking and terror. Those ashen orbs returned her stare with one that was bold, evil, and encouraging. “I--I haven’t the courage I thought, Artress,” faltered her ladyship. “It is a terrible thing to do!” “You love Sir Harold, after all?” taunted the companion, as she picked up the sinister slip of paper and burned it. “No, no, but he trusts me; he loves me. There was a time, Artress, when I could not have harmed a dog that licked my hand or fawned upon me. And now--but I am not so bad as you think. I am base, unscrupulous, manœuvring, I know. My marriage was but part of a wicked plan, the fruit of a conspiracy against Sir Harold Wynde, but I shrink from the crowning evil we have planned. To play the viper and sting the hand that has warmed me--to wound to the core the heart that beats so fondly and proudly for me--to--to cut short the noble, beneficent, happy life of Sir Harold--oh, I cannot! I cannot!” Her ladyship swept forward impetuously toward the hearth and knelt down before a quaint crimson-cushioned chair, crossing her arms upon it, and laying her head on her bare white arms. The firelight played upon the ruddy waves of her long robe, upon the gems at her throat and wrists, upon her picturesquely dishevelled hair, and upon her stormy, handsome face. She stared into the fire with her great black terrified eyes, as if seeking in those dancing flames some mystic meaning. Her gray companion flitted across the floor to her side like an evil shadow.