Natalie hails the expiration of the minority of the "daughter of the Dons." The millions will now fall under her own control. Power!--social power! concrete power! The most urgent appeals to her from Hardin cannot make her leave France. Hardin storms. He threatens. He implores. He cannot leave California and go to France himself. The wily wretch knows that Natalie THERE will have a local advantage over him. Month after month glides away. Swordplay only. Villa Rocca, dallying with Natalie, gloats over the beauties of the ward. Armand Valois, by invitation of Colonel Peyton, has decided to spend a year or so in Switzerland and Germany, painting and sketching. Louise Moreau soons becomes a proficient amateur artist. She wanders on the lovely shores of the lake, with the gifted young American. Love weaves its golden web. Joined heart and soul, these children of fortune whisper their love by the throbbing bosom of the lake. It is with the rare genius of her sly nature, a happy thought, that Madame de Santos requests the chivalric Raoul Dauvray to instruct her own ward in modelling and sketching. It will keep her mind busy, and content the spirited girl. She must save her from Villa Rocca. Dauvray is also a painter of no mean talent. A studio is soon arranged. The merry girl, happy at her release from convent walls, spends pleasant hours with the ex-Zouave. Drifting, drifting daily down happy hours to the knowledge of their own ardent feelings. Natalie absolutely debars all other visitors from meeting her young ward. Only her physician and PŠre Fran‡ois can watch these studio labors. She fears Hardin's emissaries only. Many visits to the studio are made by Villa Rocca. He is a lover of the "beaux-arts." The days fly by pleasantly. Natalie is playing a cool game now. PŠre Fran‡ois and Raoul Dauvray are ever in her charmed circle. She dare not refuse the friendship of the inscrutable priest. She watches, cat-like, for some sign or token of the absent Louise Moreau. Nothing. Colonel Joseph's sagacity has arranged all communication from the Swiss lakes, through his trusted banker. It is a blind trail. Vimont, eying Natalie and Villa Rocca keenly, reports that he cannot fathom their relations. Guilty lovers? No. There is no obstacle at all to their marriage. Then why not a consummation? "Accomplices?" "In what crime?" "Surely none!" The count is of station undoubted. A member of the Jockey Club. Natalie de Santos speaks frankly to PŠre Fran‡ois of her obligations to the dead woman. That mysterious assailant still defies the famed police of Paris. Yet around Madame de Santos a web of intrigue is woven, which even her own keen eyes do not ferret out. Strange woman-heart. Lonely and defiant, yet blind, she thinks she guards her control of the budding heiress, "Isabel Valois." Waiting?