"Thank you." He lifts his hat, and resumes his seat and his former attitude just as Lucian reappears.
Now all was bustle and confusion, the journey's end was reached; and through the hurrying, jostling crowd, past flickering lamps, and sleepy guards, they went under the dusky arches of the mammoth city station, out among the bawling 'bus drivers and brawling hackmen, past them, until a carriage, that seemed to be in waiting for them just beyond the noisy crowd, was reached. Stepping into this, they were about to drive away when, in the shadow, and very near them, Madeline discerned the form of the Unknown of the railway train. Then Lucian gave the order from the carriage window, and they rolled away.
The man in the shadow heard, and stepping into the nearest carriage, repeated the order given by Lucian the moment before, adding: "Quick; don't lose a moment!"
And thus it was that a carriage passed swiftly by that which contained Davlin and his companion, and the flash of their vehicle's lamp showed Madeline the face looking from its window.
Again that face seen in the shadow—how strange, thought she; but her lover was speaking and she forgot all else.
"Darling, I must leave you soon. I came up to-night on a matter of business, and to meet a friend who will leave to-morrow early. I must therefore keep my appointment to-night, late as it is; or rather this morning, for it is midnight and past. You will not be afraid, dear, left alone for a little while in a great hotel?"
"I am not afraid, Lucian, but—"
"But lonely; is that it? Well, sweetheart, it's only for a little while, and to-morrow I will come for you, and all shall be arranged. We'll have no more separations then. Rest well and at noon to-morrow be ready; I will be with you then. Meantime, your every want will be supplied, and let the morrow find my little treasure bright-eyed and blooming."
"Oh, Lucian, Lucian! how strange this seems. I can't realize it at all."
He laughed lightly. "Not afraid, little one?"
"Not afraid, Lucian, no; but I can't explain or describe my feelings. I suppose I need rest; that is all."
"That is all, depend upon it; and here we are. One kiss, Madeline, the last till to-morrow."
He folded her tenderly in his arms, and then sprang lightly from the carriage.
Up and down, far as the eye could see, the street lamps glittered, and as Madeline stepped from the carriage she observed another roll away. High above her loomed the great hotel, and after midnight though it was, all here was life and bustle. The scene was novel to the half bewildered girl. Clinging to her lover's arm, she entered the reception-room and, sitting opposite the door, saw a form pass in the direction Lucian had taken, as he went to register her name and order for her "all that the house could afford."
"I did not give your real name, because of your step-father, you know," said Lucian, upon his return. "I registered you as Miss Weir, that name being the first to occur to me."
She looked a trifle disturbed, but said nothing. A few words more and a servant appeared.
"To conduct you to your room," said Lucian.
Together they moved towards the door; there he lifted his hat, with profound courtesy, and said in a very audible tone: "Good-night, Miss Weir; I will call to-morrow noon; pleasant dreams."
"To-morrow noon," she echoed.
As she watched his retreating figure, another passed her; a man who, meeting her eye, lifted his hat and passed out.
"He again!" whispered the girl to herself; "how very strange."
Alone in her room, the face of this man looked at her again, and sitting down, she said, wearily: "Who is he? what does he mean? His name—I'll look at the card."
Taking it from her pocket, she read aloud: Clarence Vaughan, M. D., No. 430 B—— street.
"Clarence Vaughan, M. D.," she repeated. "What did he mean? I must tell Lucian to-morrow; to-night I am too weary to think. Search for me, John Arthur; find me if you can! To-morrow—what will it bring, I wonder?"
Weary one, rest, for never again will you sleep so innocently, so free from care as now. Sleep well, nor dream!
She slept. Of the three who had been brought into contact thus strangely, Madeline slept most soundly and dreamed the brighter dreams.
It was the last ray of her sunlight; when the day dawned, her night began.
CHAPTER V.
A SHREWD SCHEME.
An elegant apartment, one of a suite in a magnificent block such as are the pride of our great cities.
Softest carpets, of most exquisite pattern; curtains of richest lace; lambrequins of costly texture; richly-embroidered and velvet-covered sleepy-hollows and lounging chairs; nothing stiff, nothing that did not betoken abandonment to ease and pleasure; downy cushions; rarest pictures; loveliest statuettes; finest bronzes; delicate vases; magnificent, full length mirrors, a bookcase, itself a rare work of art, containing the best works of the best authors, all in the richest of bindings—nothing here that the most refined and cultivated taste could disapprove, and yet everything bespoke the sybarite, the voluptuary. A place wherein to forget that the world held aught save beauty; a place for luxurious revelry, and repose filled with lotus dreams.
Such was the bachelor abode of Lucian Davlin, as the glowing gas lights revealed it on the dark night of the arrival of this gentleman in the city.
Moving restlessly about, as one who was perfectly familiar with all this glowing richness, only because movement was a necessity to her; trailing her rich dress to and fro in an impatient promenade, and twisting recklessly meantime a delicate bit of lace and embroidery with plump, white fingers—a woman waited and watched for the coming of Lucian Davlin.
A woman, fair of face, hazel-eyed, sunny-haired, with a form too plump to be quite classical, yet graceful and prepossessing in the extreme. A very fair face, and a very wise one; the face of a woman of the world, who knows it in all its phases; who is able, in her own peculiar manner, to guide her life bark successfully if not correctly, and who has little to acquire, in the way of experience, save the art of growing old gracefully and of dying with an acquitted conscience.
No unsophisticated girl was Cora Weston, but a woman of eight-and-twenty; an adventuress by nature and by calling, and with beauty enough, and brains enough, to make her chosen profession prosperous, if not proper.
She paused before a mirror, carefully adjusting her fleecy hair, for even
