“I’ll tell you all I know when we get home,” the young lady answered, frowning darkly at the memory of that morning’s rencontre at Madame Barto’s with lovely Jessie. She thought viciously: “That old witch lied to me--she knew he was there to see the girl, but she feared to own the truth to me. But I shall have an ally now in the man who carried her off this evening, and woe to him if he breaks faith with me!” CHAPTER VIII. “SHE SHALL BE MINE?” With an evil smile on his face, Carey Doyle whipped up the horse and drove swiftly back to his aunt’s house, his eyes gloating on the pale, unconscious beauty of Jessie’s face as it lay across his knee where he had carefully placed it. The man’s heart was aroused as it had never been before by this lovely girl, and he vowed to himself that she should become his own. In the gray dusk of the November day he carried her into the house, to the dismay of Madame Barto, who exclaimed: “So you were as good as your word! You tried to kill the poor child!” Carey Doyle denied the impeachment with the greatest sang-froid, protesting that on the contrary he had saved the poor girl’s life in a runaway accident. “And as soon as you bring her around I want to have a serious talk with you,” he said, as she turned him out of the little hall bedroom where Jessie lay on her narrow cot. He waited impatiently in the parlor about half an hour before she reappeared, saying: “She was hard to revive, and hardly knows what has happened to her yet, so I just gave her a sedative and left her to fall asleep while I come to hear what you have to say, Carey.” “Well, as I told you just now, Laurier’s horses bolted in the park and ran away, pitching him out, and leaving Jessie in. I happened to be looking on and stopped the team and saved her life.” “Good!” said the fortune teller approvingly, and he continued: “While I took Jessie into my dogcart to bring her home, two swell Fifth Avenue ladies had Laurier put into a carriage and taken home. Now, aunt, I want you to help me to win Jessie Lyndon, and to give up all such notions as Fate having cut her out for Mr. Laurier. It isn’t likely that he means fair by Jessie, anyway; rich young men don’t often marry poor girls, you know; while I’ll make her my wife at any moment you persuade her to have me.” “How am I to manage it?” “Tell her that Laurier was killed in the accident, and keep her a prisoner in her room until she consents to marry me.” “A risky game--and what am I to gain by it, anyway?” asked madame significantly. Doyle laughed coarsely: “Well, I’ve helped you often enough in risky games, so it’s your turn now. You just help me in this, or I’ll split on you. See? And you know what I can say and do if I want to. But you do the right thing and I will, too. Here’s some money, but mind you do the right thing, or you’ll be sorry. I’ll go now and call to-morrow evening to see how our plan works,” he said, rising to go.