In the meantime the old couple down-stairs, after removing bolts and bars, admitted, to their astonishment and dismay, the two conspirators, Pratt and Colville. "You were not expecting me, eh?" said Doctor Pratt, with a laugh at Haidee's astonished look as she blinked at him beneath the flaring candle she held aloft. "Well, that cursed hound of yours was not expecting me either. He had nearly taken a piece out of my throat before he recognized my voice and became pacific. I had thought he must have known me at once. Look you, I shall put a bullet in his head some day, the blood-thirsty brute!" "If you do, you will destroy the best safeguard you have against the escape of your prisoner," said Haidee, shortly. "Ah! well, let him live a little longer then, but you must teach him not to forget his old friends," was the careless reply. "You come late, doctor. We did not expect you, and were about retiring," said old Peter. "Yes, we thought it better to come by stealth," said Pratt, shortly. "The fact is, Colville has taken it in his head that we are watched by some fellow, and it suits us to be wary just now. We wish to see Miss Lawrence at once. Is she safe and well?" "As safe and well as usual. Starvation does not seem to agree with her very well," answered Haidee, leading the way up-stairs with her flaring candle. "It will break her proud spirit all the sooner," said Colville, brutally, as he followed them. Haidee stepped into the hall, opened Lily's door and entered, nearly falling over the prostrate form of the girl. She started back in dismay. "Why, what--the devil!" cried Pratt, entering behind her. "What has happened to the girl? Is she dead?" He knelt down, felt the pulse, and laid his ear over the heart as Colville and Peter entered after him. "She is in a faint," he said, looking up into Colville's frightened face. "Our arrival was most opportune. Haidee, bring wine or whatever stimulants you have in the house. Her vitality is exhausted. The late regimen has been too severe for her weak constitution, perhaps." He straightened the still form out upon the floor and applied a vial of pungent smelling salts to her nostrils. In a moment life came fluttering back, and Lily's languid gaze opened upon the faces of her enemies. The white lids closed again and a heart-wrung sigh drifted over her lips. Doctor Pratt lifted the light form in his arms and laid her upon the bed as Haidee entered, carrying a glass of wine. He took it from her hand and held it to the lips of his patient. "Drink this, Miss Lawrence," he said, "you are weak and faint; it will revive you." She drank it thirstily, and felt a momentary thrill of returning strength. Rising on her elbow she looked at them all languidly. "You time your visit late, gentlemen," she said, with a slight inflection of scorn on the concluding word.