While he was shaking her cold little hand she saw over his shoulder another form, tall, broad-shouldered, blond; her heart gave a strangling leap of keen emotion. It was Professor Doepkin, whom she had never met since the night he had saved her life. He had been absent from his boarding-house ever since--on business, Emmett said. When the German saw that beautiful vision in the center of the room he rose up with a decidedly sheepish air and stood back of the lawyer, waiting his turn to greet beauteous Italy. In a minute she had dropped Mr. Gardner’s hand and pushed resolutely past him. “Professor Doepkin--oh, what a delightful surprise! You are the person I have been dying to see for a whole week!” she cried out eagerly, earnestly, and with just a soupçon of raillery in her tone. Both of her beautiful hands were outstretched to him so frankly that he was compelled to take them in his and mutter something, he was not conscious what, in his surprise, and she went on softly in that voice like sweetest music. “Oh, how can I thank you for that night? We are so grateful to you, mama and I! We owe you our lives. People have told me how brave you were, what a terrible risk you ran! And we were strangers to you, too. Oh, sir, you are a hero!” “It was a trifling risk, and it was well repaid by my pleasure in saving two precious lives. Please say no more about it, Miss Vale,” returned the German, in perfect English, although a trifle huskily, and dropping her hands, for she had left them in his, while her glorious eyes beamed on his with a look that made him long to gather her to his heart and crush all that beauty and sweetness passionately in his yearning arms. But he fought the temptation, and drew back a little stiffly to hand her a chair. “Pray have this seat, Miss Vale.” She flashed him a look of deep reproach and turned her back on him with sudden scorn. “Mr. Gardner, I wished to see you--alone,” she said, a little bruskly. “Certainly, my dear; we will go to the library. You will excuse us, friends.” In the library, her face lost the brightness that had flashed into it at sight of the German, and grew pale and troubled. “Oh, sir, my scheme failed utterly. Percy Seabright married Mrs. Dunn, and sailed for Europe with her afterward.” His face reflected the chagrin of her own. “Could he have received your note?” “I cannot tell. The messenger was well paid to deliver it promptly, and to return and inform me how he received it, but he never came back.” “He deceived you, probably, although there is a possibility that Seabright might have gone on, and married her after--all. There are some men, you know, who actually admire a woman with a soupçon of the devil in her. I think _he_ did, and thus we are foiled. But take heart, child. He will return, and, after all, it may be easier to work on our clues in his absence, for as yet we have nothing to serve as a basis for an arrest.” She paced up and down the room, chafing with impatience.