"You may sell your rubies. They are worth a thousand pounds, at least, and the proceeds will keep us comfortable for some time," Ivy answers, with cool insolence. So, with the dread of selling her beloved rubies before her eyes, Mrs. Cleveland proceeds to practice economy with a vengeance, living in the cheapest style with a view to lengthening to its utmost capacity the check that Leslie Noble had contemptuously thrown them at their last interview. But the wily widow has her own schemes and plans for the future, though she imparts none of them to Ivy, whose selfishness and insolence have begun to disgust even the wicked and crafty woman who bore her. Ivy always contrived to make herself a despised burden to anyone who had aught to do with her. Even her mother was sensible of that patent fact. In these days of their disgrace and humiliation, the deserted wife shut herself into her shabby chamber, incessantly bewailing her hard fate, and upbraiding her mother for her long-ago sin which had been the means of bringing down this vengeance on her daughter's head. Not that Ivy regretted the wrong that had broken the hearts of Lawrence and Edith Campbell, but she was exceedingly wroth that the consequences had recoiled upon her own devoted head. While she nurses her woes in the seclusion of her small, hot chamber, Mrs. Cleveland is maturing her plans for the future in the shabby-genteel parlor where she is interviewing a visitor--no less a person than Raleigh Gilmore. Mr. Gilmore, after a calm, dispassionate view, does not appear like a man who would honor the title and estates from which he is desirous of ousting the present fair incumbent, Lady Fairvale. He is tall and thin, and stoop-shouldered, with shaggling, gray hair, gray, ferret eyes, and a coarse face on which nature has stamped "villain" too unmistakably for cavil. So much the better for her purpose, the woman thinks to herself as she reads the cunning features like an open book. The first purport of their interview having been discussed, the visitor proceeds to the second. "When I received your letter advising me of your ability and willingness to furnish evidence to oust that adventuress from Fairvale and leave me in possession, you hinted at a reward which you should exact in return for your valuable services," he observes, regarding her closely under his shaggy, overhanging, gray eyebrows. "Yes," she remarks, with a cool, self-possessed bow. "I should be glad to know the amount of the sum that will compensate your aid," Mr. Gilmore pursues, as eagerly as if he already held the vast wealth of Fairvale within his close, penurious grasp. A slight, mocking smile glances over the wily widow's handsome, well-preserved face. "You are a bachelor, I have heard," she answers, in a significant tone. "Yes; I have never liked women well enough to tie myself to one," Mr. Gilmore retorts, with grim frankness. The widow tosses her head.