"I shall tell you nothing, because I have nothing to tell. But I ask you to explain one thing to me?" "What is that?" "Why did Mara dance towards the door. I saw her as I became insensible." Dane looked worried. "I don't know. When she smells that perfume she always acts like that. It isn't a dance exactly, but it is certainly a measured movement. I don't understand Mara," he confessed candidly. "She has powers which are not under her own control. I could control them, but she will not allow me to." "She is quite right," said Miss Carrol emphatically, "and never again will I allow you to put me in a trance. It is dangerous," and with a nod she also went into the house. Theodore Dane, with a lowering face and a savage gleam in his blue eyes, stood where he was, with bowed head, considering what the coming of Basil had cost him. He was greatly attracted to Patricia, not by love for her beauty or sweet nature, but because she possessed certain psychic powers which he wished to control. She could, as he now knew, go and return consciously, and that capability showed an advanced state of spiritual evolution. With such a messenger to send into the Unseen, since he could not go himself and Mara refused to obey him, he could accomplish great things. Had he been left alone with the girl, for a certain period, he might have managed to sap her will power and render her his slave. But the coming of Basil changed all that. Basil was young and handsome and ardent, and with a sailor's keen sense of beauty, would be certain to admire, and perhaps love, Patricia. If this was so, Basil certainly would prevent any more experiments being made, and Theodore's evil heart was filled with black rage at the unexpected thwarting of his aims. "Curse him!" he muttered, alluding to his brother. "He always crosses my path and puts me wrong." And as he spoke he raised his head to survey the goodly heritage which assuredly Basil would gain in the end. "I shall not be driven from here," raged Theodore furiously. "I shall marry the girl and gain the property by getting Basil out of the way. But how is it to be done with safety to myself? I must think."