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The fly was standing just out of sight from the house, and rapidly leaving it behind me I strode over the frozen grass of the lawn, taking a shorter cut than the avenue would have been. In considerably less than five minutes I had once more arrived in front of the window through which I was as positive as ever I had seen Karine.

He had kept his temper, and he had got the better of me. If my time would only come! Karine's Engagement Ring In the first hour of my anguish after hearing that Karine was lost to me, I had come very near to registering a vow that voluntarily I would not see her again. Now, however, since our memorable chance meeting in the hotel, my resolve was different.

A desire for the punishment of Wildred might have held a prominent place both in Cunningham's mind and mine, but our first thought was to save Karine from becoming the murderer's wife. She must be disabused of the belief that her brother was in any way in Wildred's power. She must know that, as Cunningham expressed it, the "shoe was on the other foot."

I told him the strange story of the past few weeks from beginning to end. I commenced with the part which concerned Farnham and Carson Wildred alone. I did not pass over that which had to do with Karine, my hopeless and unrequited love for her, my passionate anxiety to serve her at all costs; and I ended by declaring my certainty that Carson Wildred and Willis Collins were one and the same man.

What with the two wounds I had received, and the strain of the past few weeks, which had begun to tell upon me at last, for a time I lay in rather a precarious condition. But one morning I woke to consciousness, and found that the beautiful face which had been near me in my dreams was present in reality. Karine and her brother had nursed me through more than a fortnight's illness.

So great was my dread of Wildred as a criminal, and my respect for him as a schemer, that I even feared dimly for Karine's safety with him. It was madness to entertain such a doubt, I assured myself, for great heiress as she was, Karine was lovely enough and sweet enough to inspire genuine love even in so cold-hearted a villain as Wildred.

I ought by this time to have been sure that Wildred and Karine were not in the house, but, on the contrary, I was by no means certain of that fact. Mentally I argued that, if the master was absent, a caretaker or servant would certainly have been left, and unless a stone-deaf person had been selected for the post my violent alarms would have brought him to me.

Somehow I felt that I was on the eve of a discovery which might be of vast importance in both our lives. How had Wildred obtained that ring from Harvey Farnham? Why had he lied about it to Karine? That he was a villain and a schemer I was sure, though I had had no possible means of proving it. What if this seemingly small matter should put a clue into my hands.

"As for the ladies, sir, unfortunately they are not expected back this evening until until the last train too late, as you can understand, sir, to receive any visitors, as at all events they can't reach the house until after eleven." I bit my lip with futile indignation against Lady Tressidy, and against Fate never against Karine.

I wondered grimly, as I remembered the speech, whether all these benefactors had met their death after the manner of poor Harvey Farnham. Time was pressing now, and our idea was to go straight to Karine, I to appear only as the supporter of her brother.