She is not wont to keep them waiting, but to-day the great dinner-bell clangs twice over, and no swish of silk in the hall, no hastening footsteps announce her coming. "What can keep Lady Vera?" the lady wonders, aloud. "Usually she is here full half an hour before the time. She is never long at her dressing. I wonder----" There is a sudden, quick step outside the door, and Sir Harry interrupts her with: "Here she is now." The door is opened, but it is only Elsie, the maid, who enters the room. Elsie, with her pretty face all pale with fear, her cheeks wet with tears, in her hand Lady Vera's letter. "Sir Harry," she utters, in a broken voice, "my lady went out into the grounds an hour ago. She gave me this letter for you in case she did not return within the hour. The time is past, and I have hastened to obey her." A chill premonition of danger thrills his heart as he breaks the seal. She has written only a few brief lines, but they are startling in their nature. "I have gone to meet the writer of the inclosed note. If I do not return in an hour you must suspect danger and have search made for me." That is all. When he has read the contents of the yellow envelope a groan bursts from his lips as he hands it to his wife. "It is a trap, and she has walked innocently into it, poor girl. Doubtless her foes have murdered her ere this," he exclaims, in deep agitation. "God forbid," Lady Clive exclaims, bursting into frightened tears. There is no thought of dinner now. Sir Harry musters the whole force of men-servants, and himself at their head, they sally forth to the rescue of their betrayed mistress. A beating summer rain has commenced to fall, and the night is pitchy dark, save for the occasional flashes of lightning that flare with blue and lurid fire against the black and stormy sky. They divide into separate forces and search frantically till the day-dawn. But all trace of Countess Vera is swallowed up in the blackness of the stormy, mysterious night. In the early dawn, a telegram flashes over the wires to Colonel Lockhart in London: "Come quickly. Vera has been abducted." CHAPTER XXXVII. In an obscure but respectable street in London, Mrs. Cleveland and Ivy had hidden themselves away in cheap and shabby lodgings, the better to husband the small hoard of money that remained to them of all their departed wealth and grandeur. "I will never consent to sell my jewels and dresses, never!" the repudiated wife declared, firmly, the ruling passion still strong even in her defeat and disgrace. "For when Leslie finds that Vera will not live with him, and when Mr. Gilmore's lawyers prove her to be the adventuress and impostor that she is, he will return to me, and I shall be his wife again. We will return to America, where no one knows anything of our trouble, and then I shall need my fine dresses and jewels again." "But what if we come to want in the meantime?" Mrs. Cleveland inquires grimly.