“Yes, Miriam!” She strode fiercely forward.  “Yes, Miriam!  Come to demand revenge!  Where is Mollie Dane?  You promised to protect her, and see how you keep your word!”

“In the demon’s name, hush!” cried Carl Walraven, savagely.  “What you have to say to me, say to me—­not to the whole house.  Come in here, you hag of Satan, and blow out as much as you please!  Good Lord!  Wasn’t I in trouble enough before, without you coming to drive me mad?”

He caught her by one fleshless arm in a sort of frenzy of desperation, and swung her into the library.  Then he turned to his audience of two with flashing eyes: 

“Wilson, be gone! or I’ll break every bone in your body!  Mrs. Walraven, be good enough to take yourself off at once.  I don’t want eavesdroppers.”

And having thus paid his elegant lady-wife back in her own coin, Mr. Walraven stalked into the library like a sulky lion, banged the door and locked it.

Mrs. Carl stood a moment in petrified silence in the hall, then sailed in majestic displeasure out of the house, into the waiting carriage, and was whirled away to the Academy.

“Turn and turn about.  Mr. Carl Walraven,” she said, between set, white teeth.  “My turn next!  I’ll ferret out your guilty secrets before long, as sure as my name is Blanche!”

Mr. Walraven faced Miriam in the library with folded arms and fiery eyes, goaded to recklessness, a panther at bay.

“Well, you she-devil, what do you want?”

“Mary Dane.”

“Find her, then!” said Carl Walraven, fiercely.  “I know nothing about her.”

The woman looked at him long and keenly.  The change in him evidently puzzled her.

“You sing a new song lately,” she said with deliberation.  “Do you want me to think you are out of my power?”

“Think what you please, and be hanged to you!” howled Mr. Walraven.  “I am driven to the verge of madness among you!  Mollie Dane and her disappearance, my wife and her cursed taunts, you and your infernal threats!  Do your worst, the whole of you!  I defy the whole lot!”

“Softly, softly,” said Miriam, cooling down as he heated up.  “I want an explanation.  You have lost Mollie!  How was she lost?”

“Yes—­how?  You’ve asked the question, and I wish you would answer it.  I’ve been driving myself wild over it for the past few days, but I don’t seem to get to the solution.  Can’t your Familiar,” pointing downward, “help you guess the enigma, Miriam?”

Miriam frowned darkly.

“Do you really intend to say you have not made away with the girl yourself?”