"You misjudge my step-mamma, Aunt Ellen." As she speaks, Madeline advances toward the silent group, leaving the library door ajar. "I will explain that singular phenomenon. I intend to clear up all the mysteries to-night--here--now. First, then, about the ghost: It was I, Miss Arthur, Madeline Payne, in the flesh."

Lucian Davlin's book lies on his knee neglected now.

Edward Percy's face has lost its look of languor.

Cora is flushing red and then paling, while she wonders inwardly if her time has come; if she is to be exposed to a last humiliation.

"We will settle another point," continues Madeline, imperturbably, while she rests one arm upon a cushioned chair back, and looks coolly from one to another. "Some of you have felt sufficient interest in me to wonder why I sent home, to my sorrowing friends, the false statement of my death. I will explain that. When I left home it was with wrath in my heart, and on my lips the vow that I would come back and with power in my hands. I had wrongs to avenge, and I swore to be mistress of my own, and to bring home to a bad man the heartache and bitterness he had measured out to another.

Well, I did not know just how this was to be accomplished, but Providence, or fate, showed me the way. Then I saw the necessity for coming back to Oakley, and to pave the way for my new advent, I sent Nurse Hagar with the false account of my death. A girl had died in the hospital--a poor, heart-broken, homeless, friendless, wronged, little unfortunate,--'Kitty the Dancer' she was called in the days when she was fair to see, and men, bad men, set snares for her feet."

What ails Lucian Davlin? He is compressing his lips, and struggling hard for an appearance of composure.

Madeline goes calmly on. "The poor girl died forlorn. She had been wooed by a vile man, a gambler. She had been to meet him and was returning from a rendezvous when the carriage that was conveying her to her poor lodging was overturned, and she was taken up a helpless, bleeding mass, and carried to the hospital. Then she sent for this heartless villain, again and again. She implored him to come to her, at least to send assistance, for she was destitute--a pauper. He refused, this thing, unworthy the name of man. He was setting other snares. He had no time, no pity, for his dying victim. Well, she died, and was buried as Madeline Payne, while I, standing beside her coffin, prayed to God to make my head wise, and my heart strong, that I might hunt down, and drive out from the haunts of men, her soulless destroyer."

Madeline pauses, and three pair of eyes gaze at her with genuine wonder. But the eyes of Lucian Davlin are fixed upon vacancy, and with all the might of his powerful will he is struggling to appear calm.

Madeline turns her eyes calmly from his face to Cora's, and seems to see nothing of this, as she resumes:

"Some strange fatality had made this man the bane of other lives, that were to be brought into contact with mine. I found that the happiness of two noble beings was being wrecked by this same man. One of these two had been my benefactor, had saved me from a fate worse than death, so I set myself to hunt this man down. And here I found that I could accomplish two objects at one stroke. I found that the man was playing into my hands. I followed him in disguise. Little by little I gained the knowledge of his secrets, enough to send him to State's prison, and more than enough. But one thing was wanting. For that I waited; for that I breathed the same air with creatures whom my soul loathed, and now that one missing link is supplied. At last, I am free! At last, I can throw off the mask! At last, I can say to the destroyer of poor Kitty, to the man who swore away the liberty of another to screen himself--Lucian Davlin, I have hunted you down! I have held you here to be taken like a rat in a trap! Officers, seize him! He has been my prisoner long enough!"

Was it a transformation scene?

While she is uttering those last words, suddenly the room becomes full of people, and Lucian Davlin is writhing in the grasp of the two officers; struggling hopelessly, baffled completely, maddened with rage and shame. When at last he has ceased to struggle, because resistance is so utterly useless, he turns his now glaring eyes upon the brave girl whose life he had sought to wreck, and hisses:

"Don't forget to mention how you first came to the conclusion that I had wronged you! Don't forget to state that you ran away from Bellair with me; that you lodged in my bachelor quarters; that--"

A heavy hand comes in forcible contact with the sneering mouth, as one of the officers says, gruffly: "None o' that, my lad. I'd sooner gag you than not, if you give me another chance."

But Madeline answers him with a scornful laugh: "That I shot you in your own den? Coward! do you think my friends do not know all? Here stands the man who saw me in your company that night," pointing to Clarence Vaughan; "and here," turning to Claire, "is the sister of the woman who came to me, at Dr. Vaughan's request, and told me who and what you were! It was these two who nursed me during my illness, and who have been, from first to last, my friends. Bah! man, you have been only a dupe. Your servant, your doctor, your detectives, are all in my service! I have fooled you to the top of your bent, and kept you under this roof until we had found the proof that it was you, and not Philip Girard, who struck this man," pointing to Percy, "and robbed him, five years ago."

With a muttered curse, Lucian Davlin flings himself down in the seat he had lately occupied, the watchful officers, pistol in hand, standing on either side of him.

Edward Percy, for the first time since her entrance, withdraws his eyes from Madeline's face and casts a frightened glance about him.

Having done this, he feels anything but reassured.

Near the outer door stand the two "well-diggers," who have entered like spirits, and now look as if, for the first time since their advent in Oakley, they feel quite at home. Nearest to Madeline stands Clarence Vaughan. Back of these, a little in the shadow, two others--two women. One stands with her face turned away, and he can only tell that the form draped in the rich India shawl is tall and graceful. But the other--she moves out from the shadow and her eyes meet his full.

Great heavens! it is Claire Keith!

He moves restlessly, his fair face flushing and paling. The first impulse of his coward heart is flight. But the two "well-diggers" are not surmountable obstacles. He turns his face again toward the Nemesis who is now gazing scornfully at him.

"I have no intention of neglecting any one of you four," she says, icily. "Edward Percy, I told you last night that I would burn certain papers in your presence. I am quite ready to keep my word. There will be no use for them after to-night. But I shall not stifle the testimony of living witnesses against you." Then she raised her voice slightly. "Dr. Le Guise, bring in your patient."

John Arthur, pallid with fear and rage, stands upon the threshold of the drawing-room, closely attended by the Professor and Henry.

Then Madeline turned to the now terror-stricken Cora. "Come forward, Mrs. John Arthur," she says, scornfully. "It is time to let you speak!"

When Edward Percy turns his eyes toward Claire, she has instinctively moved nearer to Madeline's side, at the same time favoring him with a look so fraught with contempt that the villain lowers his eyes, and turns away his face. As Madeline now addresses the fair adventuress, Claire again moves. She has been standing directly between Cora and her Nemesis. Now she takes up a position quite apart from her friends, and near the officer who guards Lucian Davlin on the right.

Cora sees that all is lost. But she recalls the promises of safety given her by Madeline, and nerves herself for a last attempt at cool insolence. Her quick wits have taken in the situation. Now she understands why Madeline has led Davlin on, and why her hatred of him is so intense. Now she knows the meaning of the words that last night seemed so mysterious: "Lucian Davlin is my lover, but I am his bitterest foe." Now, as she steps forward, the hate she feels shining in her eyes, and with a growing air of reckless bravado as she glances at him, Cora, too, is Lucian Davlin's bitter foe.

"Cora!" The name comes from the lips of John Arthur, almost in a cry.

But she never once glances toward him. She fixes her eyes upon Madeline's face and doggedly awaits her command.

"Tell us what you know of this man," Madeline says, pointing to Edward Percy: "and be brief."

Cora turns her eyes slowly upon the man. She surveys him with infinite insolence, and then she turns with wonderful coolness toward Ellen Arthur.

"Miss Arthur," she says, with a malicious gleam in her eyes, "this will interest you. I knew that man ten years ago. I was making my first venture out in the world, and it was a very bad one. I fell in love with his pretty face, and married him. Before long I discovered that matrimony was a mania of Mr. Percy's--by-the-by, he sailed under another name then. I found that he had another wife living; a woman he had married for her money. Well, being sensitive, I took offense, and after a little, I ran away from him, carrying with me the certificates of his two marriages, which I had taken some pains to get possession of. After that--"

Cora pauses suddenly and glances toward Madeline.

"After that you went to Europe. You may pass over the foreign tour, and take up the story five years later," subjoins Madeline, coldly.

"After that, I went to Europe," echoes Cora. "And five years later found me in Gotham."

"Be explicit now, please: no omissions," commands Madeline.

"Five years ago, then," resumes Cora, "that gentleman there,"

motioning to Davlin, but never turning her face toward him, "came to me one day with the information that my dear husband was a rich man, thanks to some deceased old relative, and that his other wife was dead. For some reason this other marriage had been kept very secret, and my friend there argued that in case anything happened to Percy, I might come in as his widow, and claim his fortune. Well, Mr. Percy did not die, more's the pity. Instead of that he lived and squandered his money in less than three years. He was hurt, somehow, and a certain Mr. Philip Girard was falsely accused and convicted for attempted murder."

"Who was the real would-be assassin?" asked Madeline, sternly.

"Lucian Davlin," emphatically.

Madeline turns swiftly to Percy. "Mr. Percy, explain, if you wish to lighten your own burden, by what means did that man persuade you to let him go free?"

"By--threatening me with an action for--"

"Bigamy!" finished Cora.

The villain, bereft of all hope and courage, stood white and trembling, under the eyes of his accusers and judges.

"I am letting these people hear you tell these things because I want that man,"--pointing to John Arthur, who had long since collapsed into a big chair--"to hear all this from your own lips," says Madeline.

Turning again to Cora, she says:

"Lucian Davlin made use of the papers--the certificates you had stolen from Edward Percy--to intimidate that gentleman, and secure himself from danger. Am I correct?"

"Yes," replies Cora, casting a malignant glance from one to the other of the accused men.

"Very good. Now we will pass on four or more years. You were in some little trouble last June, Mrs. Arthur. Explain how you came to Bellair."

"How?"

"Yes, for what purpose. And at whose instigation."