“Now what does the woman mean by that?  What the deuce should I make away with her for?  I liked Mollie—­upon my soul I did, Miriam!  I liked her better than any one in this house—­the little, saucy, mischievous witch!  She was on the eve of marrying a baronet, and going to her castle in Spain—­I mean in Wales—­when, lo! she vanishes like a ghost in a child’s tale.  I’ve scoured the city after her—­I’ve paid detectives fabulous amounts.  I’ve been worried, and harassed, and goaded, and mystified until I’m half mad, and here you come with your infernal nonsense about ‘making away’ with her.  That means murdering her, I suppose.  I always took you to be more or less mad, Miriam Dane, but I never before took you to be a fool.”

The woman looked at him keenly—­he was evidently telling the truth.  Yet still she doubted.

“Who but you, Carl Walraven, had any interest in her, one way or the other?  What enemies could a girl of sixteen have?”

“Ah! what, indeed?  If a girl of sixteen will flirt with every eligible man she meets until she renders him idiotic, she must expect to pay the penalty.  But I don’t pretend to understand this affair; it is wrapped in blacker mystery than the Man in the Iron Mask.  All I’ve got to say is—­I had no hand in it; so no more of your black looks, Mistress Miriam.”

“And all I’ve got to say, Mr. Walraven,” said Miriam, steadfastly fixing her eyes upon him, “is that if Mollie Dane is not found before the month is out, I will publish your story to the world.  What will Madame Walraven, what will Mrs. Carl, what will the chief metropolitan circles say then?”

“You hag of Hades!  Ain’t you afraid I will strangle you where you stand?”

“Not the least,” folding her shawl deliberately around her, and moving toward the door:  “not in the slightest degree.  Good-night, Carl Walraven—­I have said it, and I always keep my word.”

“Keep it, and—­”

But Miriam did not hear that last forcible adjuration.  She was out of the library, and out of the house, ere it was well uttered—­lost in the wet, black night.

Left alone, Carl Walraven resumed his march up and down the apartment, with a gloomier face and more frowning brows than ever.

It was bad enough before, without this tiger-cat of a Miriam coming to make things ten times worse.  It was all bravado, his defiance of her, and he knew it.  He was completely in her power, to ruin for life if she chose to speak.

“And she will choose!” growled Carl Walraven, in a rage, “the accursed old hag! if Mollie Dane doesn’t turn up before the month ends.  By the Lord Harry!  I’ll twist that wizen gullet of hers the next time she shows her ugly black face here!  Confound Mollie Dane and all belonging to her!  I’ve never known a day’s rest since I met them first.”

There was a tap at the door.  The tall footman threw it open and ushered in Sir Roger Trajenna.  The stately old baronet looked ten years older in these few days.  Anxiety told upon him more hardly than his seventy yews.