"There, there, Elsie, I did not mean to hurt you," Lady Vera says, melted at once. "But you must not try to hinder me. Give me some light wrapper now to keep the dew off my dress." Elsie brings a long, dark circular of thin cloth and delivers it to her mistress with many silent forebodings--forebodings destined to be only too sadly realized. For who can tell how long it will be before the light footsteps of Countess Vera shall echo on the threshold of the palatial home she is leaving so eagerly and secretly, now, to keep her tryst with her mysterious correspondent. Not Elsie, who weeps so silently, filled with strange, prescient fears. It is growing dusk indeed as Lady Vera, wrapped in the dark circular, with the hood drawn over her head, flits rapidly along the quiet road. When at last in the distance she descries the bent and drooping figure of an old woman, she laughs to herself at the vague fears that have troubled her. "Poor, harmless old rogue," she says to herself, half pityingly. "One need apprehend no danger from her. A few shillings will buy back my lost treasure and make the old creature happy. I was foolish to fear anything. I am very glad I came!" CHAPTER XXXVI. Leslie Noble's parting threat to the Countess Vera that he would yet claim her for his own, was not by any means the mere momentary ebullition of rage at her cold and scornful rejection of his overtures. He fully meant to keep his word. He was dazzled by her rank, her prestige, and her wondrous beauty had taken his senses captive even before the time when she had declared herself his wife. To win her he would have dared and risked much. It would be like mating with a queen and reigning as a sovereign, to share the heart, and home and wealth of this beautiful, titled lady. Up to the hour when he had sought that memorable interview with Lady Vera at Clive House, Leslie Noble had deluded himself with a vain fancy that if he deserted Ivy, and personally solicited Vera to become his wife, she would not refuse. Some spark of vanity whispered to him that if she had not had some personal interest in him she would not so readily have claimed him as her husband. He knew himself to be handsome, and he fancied that he had only to repudiate Ivy and acknowledge Vera's claim, to gain full possession of the beautiful girl. But her cold, scornful, insulting repulse had fairly maddened him, and he had sworn an oath to himself, as to her, that he would eventually possess her. But how to compass that desirable event puzzled him sorely. By her own free confession she was his wife, but he was perfectly aware that it would be utterly futile to try to claim her before the law. Her friends were too strong and powerful for him to make open war upon her. He dreaded that the least move of that nature on his part would provoke a suit for bigamy against himself.