"I tell you I am not mad," Vera cries impatiently, vexed at the woman's stolid persistence in her belief. "I am as sane as you are, and your master is a villain. He has abducted me from my friends and my home, but they will trace me out and punish him for his villany, be sure of that." "Come, my dear, do not excite yourself. It will all come well. Sit down in this arm-chair, and make yourself comfortable, while I go and fetch your lunch and a cup of tea. I dare say you have had no dinner, traveling so far." She wheels forward a large, crimson-cushioned easy-chair, but Lady Vera rejects it with a gesture of scorn. "Where is the man you call your master?" she inquires, haughtily. "Is he in the house?" "Yes, my lady. Should you be pleased to see him?" inquires her keeper, deferentially. "Yes; tell him to come. I wish to know the meaning of this dastardly outrage," the countess answers, indignantly. The woman withdraws with a bow. The click of a key in the lock informs Lady Vera that she is a prisoner. She paces up and down the floor, a storm of indignation raging in her breast, mixed with a wild hope that her friends will soon deliver her from the trap into which she had walked so unsuspectingly. Suddenly the key clicks in the lock, and Leslie Noble walks boldly into the room. CHAPTER XXXIX. For a moment they regard each other silently, Mr. Noble appearing handsome and elegant as usual, having removed the disfiguring toggery that had transformed him into a stooping old woman, and Lady Vera facing him with her slight form drawn haughtily erect, the scorn of an outraged queen flashing in her dark and star-like eyes. "Coward, villain, how dared you perpetrate this high-handed outrage?" she demands, in a clear, high voice, that trembles with its bitter anger. For answer he throws himself abjectly at her feet. "Vera, my love, my darling, my wife, my passionate love must plead my excuse. I loved you and I could not live without you. So I brought you away where I might have some chance to plead my cause with you and win your heart," he answers, weakly, still kneeling there, and gazing at her with adoring eyes. A scornful laugh ripples over the listener's beautiful lips as she retreats from him to the furthest corner of the room. "And did you think this craven course could win my heart?" she asks, with stinging contempt. "Was it a manly, a lovable feat to don the rags of a poor and feeble old woman, that you might kidnap a weak girl who hated you? Was it to surrender my heart to the handsome and manly figure you appeared on that occasion?" He writhes beneath the keen lash of her superb scorn. "Edward Rochester masqueraded as an old woman, and yet Jane Eyre loved and admired him as her hero among men," he answers, sullenly, rising to his feet.