"The portrait is flattered. Precious is not half so beautiful," she answered coldly, and a sudden constraint came between them. Lord Chester, blind to the smoldering fury under the long black lashes, thought her weary of him, and soon took leave. Ethel, left alone in the splendid room, with the scattered rose petals at her feet, flung out her arms with a gesture of rebellious despair, and moaned bitterly: "She has won my lover's heart with that fatal, luring, childish beauty! How can I help but hate her now?" The evening's post brought a mysterious type-written letter to Senator Winans. It ran thus: "You have made a mistake. I did not steal Precious for a ransom, but for love of her fair face. Do not be uneasy. I shall not harm your beautiful daughter. She is safe in the care of a kind, motherly woman, but she is also my prisoner, and will remain so until she consents to become my bride. After she is married to me you shall see her again, but never before; so you must be patient, for she is a little obdurate now, but in the end I shall win her consent." The letter had no date or signature, but it was postmarked Washington. "Didn't I say it was an elopement?" cried Ethel, in scornful triumph, but her father turned on her a lightning glance of reproof, and cried sternly: "Never dare, Ethel, to repeat that false word elopement of your innocent sister again. You have just read in this letter that it was an abduction, not an elopement. So do not make another such mistake." CHAPTER V. IN A VILLAIN'S POWER. "To see her is to love her, And love but her forever; For nature made her what she is, And never made another!"--BURNS. When Senator Winans left Precious standing like a vision of beauty under a garlanded pillar to await his return, he did not dream that the vulture of danger hovered near his blue-eyed darling. But burning eyes only a little distance away glared on the girl with wolfish eagerness, and minute by minute those small keen eyes grew fiercer with the fire of passion. Precious, all unconscious of those burning eyes, stood quietly watching the strangers that surrounded her, coming and going in ceaseless ebb and flow like the waves of the sea. Suddenly those eyes came nearer, nearer, and burned on the lovely face. Then a voice spoke in her ear: "Good-evening, Miss Winans." Precious started and looked at the speaker. She recognized her drawing-master, Lindsey Warwick, a young man she secretly disliked because she had a vague suspicion that he was the writer of several mysterious love-letters she had lately received. She gave him a haughty nod, but she did not speak, only stared in surprise at his elegant evening suit and the rose in his buttonhole, that transformed him from the poor drawing-master to the elegant man of fashion.