Azalia flung her beautiful white arms about the maid's neck. "Oh, Marie, you are a darling! You will try to get them, I know it by your face." "Of course I shall," said the maid. She laughed outright at the thought of outwitting wicked Jewel. The maid really enjoyed putting her clever powers to use, and she at once began to devise schemes for obtaining the papers she had seen Jewel exult over on several occasions. "But I shall have to leave your service for awhile," she said. "I will manage without you, for I am sure that Lady Ivon will let her maid help me sometimes," said Azalia. "Then I shall go back to Miss Fielding and pretend that I am heartily disgusted with the English aristocracy, and ask to be taken into her service again." Azalia looked very grave. "One hates to be underhand and deceitful," she said; but Marie laughed her objections away. "One must fight the devil with fire," she said, coolly; and went on disclosing her plans. "If I get taken into her service again it will not be long before I shall go through her baggage," she said. "If I find that she has not got the papers with her, I shall disappear and go immediately to Boston. Mrs. Wellings is not with her this time, so I know she has left her to keep the house and the servants in order. It will be no trouble for me to get into the house to visit my friend the chamber-maid, and no trouble for me to get something I forgot when I left there. You understand?" "Yes. Oh, Marie, I will make you rich for this! I am heiress to a great fortune, and you will see that I shall reward you generously," Azalia exclaimed, gratefully. Marie's face beamed with delight. "Then I will send for the old _pere_ and _mere_ from Paris. I will set them up in a little shop on the boulevard--what you call it, the avenue? _Bon!_" she cried, jubilantly. Early the next morning Marie made her appearance at the grand hotel where the Merediths were staying, and by an artful story contrived to ingratiate herself again into the favor of Jewel. "I will tell you a secret, but pray do not breathe it to any one. I am but a poor maid, and no one might believe me," she said, "but, Miss Fielding, I am afraid that Miss Brooke has designs on my life. Last night I found a little box of dynamite upon the door, and when I flung it out of the window there was a loud explosion. I do not know what I have done to her to incur her anger, but it certainly looked as if she had attempted my life." Jewel agreed with her, and took her into her employ again, while her heart sunk with disappointment at Azalia Brooke's escape from her clever snare. "She seems to bear a charmed life. Three times she has escaped my vengeance!" she thought, uneasily. But she consoled herself with the thought that yesterday's work had at least accomplished one good turn, as it had brought the clever Marie back into her service. She would have to contrive still another plan to get rid of her dangerous rival. CHAPTER XLIX.