He broke off, shuddering, for a fiend’s laugh seemed to echo in the stillness--the laugh of a fiend who has tempted some poor soul to its eternal ruin. It was more than the unstrung nerves of the man could bear. With a muttered imprecation, he seized his hat from the floor, where it was lying, and groped his way out of the dismal house into the sweet night air. But as he closed the door and turned from the accursed threshold, that fiendish, mocking laugh seemed to follow him with taunting echoes down the road. Slowly and painfully he made his way home, thankful that the pall of midnight covered the earth, so that none saw him in the blood-soaked garments he wore. Going to Maybelle’s room, he told her what had happened, and asked her to examine the wound. Shuddering at sight of the blood, his sister carefully unwrapped the bandages, and found that the wound--a very slight one, though it had bled freely--had already been carefully dressed. “Your swoon must have been a long one, to enable her to do all this before she fled from the house,” said Maybelle, as she carefully replaced the bandages. Otho was bitterly chagrined at the failure of his scheme and Floy’s second escape from his devilish machinations. “And the worst of it is that I can not follow up her track for some time now. I shall be obliged to keep my room several days with this mark of affection she has given me,” he growled. Maybelle wept in bitterness of spirit; but she had no reproaches to offer him now. He had done all that he could, and was not to blame for his failure. It seemed to her as if her lovely rival must indeed bear a charmed life, so cleverly had she escaped each time from the machinations of her enemies. Her chances of ever winning Beresford grew each day less and less; but so madly had she fixed her heart upon him that it seemed to her without that hope she must die. It was less than a year since she had known him, but her jealousy had altered all her life. Before she met him, Maybelle had been simply a handsome, selfish girl, ambitious to make a grand match--even to secure a title, if possible. Mrs. Vere de Vere had abetted all her desires; but no grand suitor had fallen into the net they spread until Beresford’s careless flirting had awakened hopes never to be realized, and, alas! roused the sleeping devil in a nature well endowed with capabilities for evil. What a potent factor is Love in all the affairs of life. Laugh at Love, flout him as we may, he still is our master, we his slaves. “Not till Love comes in all his strength and terror, Can we read other’s hearts; not till then know A wide compassion for all human error, Or sound the quivering depths of mortal woe. “Not till we sail with him o’er stormy oceans Have we seen tempests; hidden in his hand He holds the keys to all the great emotions; Till he unlocks them none can understand.”