Her wretched state was not improved by the visit of a veiled young woman later in the day.  The visitor was undoubtedly a lady, but the story she poured into the unwilling ears was so astounding that Dorothy dismissed her indignantly before it was finished.  The low-voiced, intense stranger, young and evidently beautiful, told her that Quentin’s injuries were not inflicted by thieves, but by the hired agents of one who had cause to fear him.  Before Miss Garrison could remonstrate, the stranger went into the details of a plot so cowardly that she was horrified—­horrified all the more because, in a large measure, it sustained the charges made against her lover by Philip Quentin.  When at last she could no longer endure the villifying recital she bade the woman to leave the house, hotly refusing to give countenance to the lies she was telling.  The stranger desisted only after her abject pleading had drawn from the other a bitter threat to have her ejected by the servants.

“You will not hear me to the end, but you must give me the privilege of saying that I do not come here to do him or you an injury,” said the visitor, tremulously.  “It is to save you from him and to save him for myself.  Mademoiselle, I love him.  He would marry me were it not for you.  You think jealousy, then, inspired this visit?  I admit that jealousy is the foundation, but it does not follow that I am compelled to lie.  Everything I have said and would say is true.  Perhaps he loves you, but he loved me first.  A week ago he told me that he loved me still.  It was I who warned the American gentleman against him, and my reason is plain.  I want him to win.  It would mean death to me if it were known that I came to you with this story.  Do you bid me go, or will you hear me to the end?”

“You must go.  I cannot listen to the infamous things you say about—­about—­him,” said Dorothy, her voice choking toward the end.  A horrible fear seized upon her heart.  Was this woman mad or had Quentin told the truth?  A new thought came to her and she grasped the woman’s hand with convulsive fingers.  “You have been sent here by Mr. Quentin!  O, how plain it is!  Why did I not see through it at once?  Go back to your employer and tell him that—­” She was crying hysterically when the woman snatched away her hand, and drawing herself to full height interrupted haughtily: 

“I have humbled myself that I might do you the greatest service in the world.  You drive me from your presence and you call me a liar.  All of that I must endure, but I will not suffer you to accuse this innocent man while I have voice to offer up in his defense.  I may be some one’s slave, but I am not the servant of any man.  I do not know this American; he does not know me.  I am my own agent and not his tool.  What I have tried to tell you is true and I confess my actions have been inspired by selfish motives.  Mademoiselle, the man you are to marry promised to make me his wife long before he knew you.”