"Rumor is right," Lady Vera answers, with calm defiance. "I love Colonel Lockhart, and I should have been his wife had not you reappeared upon the scene. I believed you dead. Tell me who was it that died last year in your native city, having the same name as your own?" "It was my uncle, Leslie Noble, for whom I was named," he answers, sullenly, and then, quite suddenly, he falls down on his knees before her, and tries to take her hand, but she draws it haughtily away. "Oh, Vera," he exclaims, in abject despair, "you drive me mad when you so heartlessly declare your love for another man. You have no right to love any other man than me; I am the lord of your heart and person, yet once more I plead with you, humbly, because I love you, come home with me, Vera, my darling. Be my wife in truth. Let me claim what already belongs to me in the eyes of the law." "Never!" she answers, decisively. "Rise, Leslie Noble, do not kneel to me. I will have naught to do with you now or ever. I would die before I would recognize your claim upon me. You have my answer now and for all time. Go, and do not trouble me again." She moves to the door and holds it open, pointing to it with one white, taper finger. She looks so proud, so imperious, so commanding, that against his will he is compelled to obedience. He moves to the door, but looks back to say with a dark, menacing frown: "I am going, but do not please yourself with the fancy that you have seen the last of me, Lady Fairvale. You belong to me, and I swear that I will have my own." With that ominous threat he goes. CHAPTER XXVIII. Previous to Leslie Noble's visit to Countess Vera he has been the hero of an excited scene at Darnley House. Since the night of Mrs. Vernon's party, Ivy has been, for the most part of the time, raving in angry hysterics, which Mr. Noble makes no smallest attempt to soothe or soften. In fact, he spends almost all of his time away from home, and a quiet as of the tomb seems to have fallen over the magnificent mansion with its splendid furniture and large retinue of servants. No one calls, no further invitations pour in upon them. Society seems to have tacitly turned the cold shoulder to them in their defeat and disgrace. The rage, the shame, the humiliation of Mrs. Cleveland's mind no tongue can tell. From the grave in which he lies moldering back to his kindred clay, her enemy has reached out an icy, skeleton hand, and struck the brimming cup of pride and triumph ruthlessly from her lips. Through the agency of his child, the beautiful daughter she had hated so bitterly, he had avenged his terrible wrongs. There is murder in Marcia Cleveland's heart as she writhes under the retributive hand of justice. Fain would she grip her strong, white fingers around Vera's delicate throat, and press the life out, or plunge a dagger in her tender breast, or press a poisoned cup to those beautiful lips that had condemned her in such scornful phrases.