"It can not be true--that story that Dainty eloped with another for she never had any lover but Mr. Ellsworth. Besides, when I was awakening from my strange sleep that morning, I heard him telling you he had married my daughter two weeks before," she said, wondering why Mrs. Ellsworth gasped and grew so deathly pale before she burst into that strange laugh, declaring that Mrs. Chase had dreamed the whole thing. "Nothing of the kind was said by my step-son," she declared, firmly; adding, with a sneer: "Your trouble must have turned your brain, causing you to imagine such a ridiculous thing; and I hope you will not mention it to any one else, for Lovelace Ellsworth was the soul of honor, I assure you, and the last person in the world to lead an innocent young girl into anything so disgraceful as a secret marriage." "I know that he was very noble," faltered the poor little woman, "and I must indeed have dreamed it if you deny that I heard such a statement. Yet the dream was as vivid as a reality." "Dreams often are, and this was only another instance," replied the haughty woman, coldly, adding: "I see no use trying to find Dainty. She went away of her own free will, and she will not communicate her whereabouts till she chooses. With that you must rest content. As for my part, I am free to confess that I am so indignant at her treachery to Love that I don't care if I never see her face again!" Mrs. Chase shrank sensitively from the angry flash of her sister-in-law's black eyes, and returned meekly to Love's bedside to watch the slowly sinking life and wipe the moisture from the pale brow that Dainty had so loved to kiss, and her tortured heart prayed hourly: "Oh, God, give back his life! Raise him up from this bed of illness, that he may unravel the web of mystery that entangles the fate of my lost darling!" Mrs. Ellsworth was terribly frightened, for Sheila Kelly had promptly told her of Dainty's declaration that she was already married to Love, and her offer that Love would make her rich if she would set her free. If the proud woman had felt the least pity for Dainty, it all died now in the dread lest she should escape and rob her of the rich inheritance that would be hers if Love died unmarried. She said to herself resolutely that there was no help for it now. Dainty's life must be sacrificed to the terrible exigencies of her position. Not that Mrs. Ellsworth would have taken the girl's life with her own white hands, or even deputed another to do so. Oh, no, no! Of course she would not be so wicked, she told herself complacently. But to imprison the poor girl on bread and water in a sunless dungeon, and goad her to despair till she died of persecution, or even took her own life--oh, that was quite another thing! thought the heartless woman, stifling the voice of conscience in her determination to succeed in her wicked aims.