"Good! but was she assured?" "Not fully. She is confused, bewildered, perplexed, thrown out of her reckoning and off the track; and before she has time to recover herself, collect her faculties, and get upon the scent again, we must act. We must draw the net around her. We must place her in a position in which her character as a witness against you would he totally vitiated. To do this we must hasten the denouement of the plot." "That plot which will rid me of my rival and make me--me--Lady Vincent!" exclaimed the siren, her eyes sparkling with anticipated triumph. "Yes, my angel, yes! And I would it were to-morrow!" "Ah, but, in the meanwhile, if I should be found out and guillotined!" she cried, with a shudder. "Hanged, my angel, hanged; not guillotined! I told you we do not guillotine people in England." "Ah--h--h!" shrieked the guilty woman, covering her face with her hands. "But I tell you there is no danger, my love; none at all, if we do but act promptly and firmly. The time is ripe. The plot is ripe. She herself walks into the trap, by insisting on staying at home this evening, instead of accompanying us to the theater. I have sent the carriage for Mrs. MacDonald. She will come to luncheon with us, and afterwards go with us to the play. My lady will remain at home, by her own request." "Does Frisbie know the part he is to play?" "Yes; but not the precise hour of his debut. That I shall teach him to-day. He will be well up in his lesson by this evening, you may depend." "Ah, then we shall finish the work to-night!" "We shall finish it to-night." "But Mrs. MacDonald--will she not be in the way?" "No; as I shall arrange matters, she will be of the greatest use and help to us, without knowing it. First, as a most respectable chaperon for you, and, secondly, as a most indubitable witness of the fall of Lady Vincent." "Good! good! I see! To-night, then, she shall be cast down from her proud pedestal. And to-morrow--" "To-morrow she shall be dismissed from the castle." "But then I shall have to go, too. I could not stay--the world would talk." "No, Faustina, you shall not go. I shall go and leave you here, and invite Mrs. MacDonald to remain and bear you company until--until I shall be free, my angel, to return and make you my wife." She clapped her hands with great glee and eagerly demanded: "And when will that be? Oh, when will that be? How soon? how soon?" "It may be weeks; it may be months; for the Divorce Courts are proverbially slow. But the time will come at length; for I have taken every measure to insure perfect success." CHAPTER XXX. A NIGHT OF HORROR.