Madeline's eyes were moist when she lifted them from the perusal of this letter.
"Bright, beautiful, brave Claire," she murmured; "who could help loving her?"
Then her eyes fell again upon the letter, and she started:
"'You will become that and more to Doctor Vaughan,'" she read. "What can she mean? Can it be possible that, after all, I have betrayed myself to her?"
She re-read the letter from beginning to end, her face flushing and paling.
"Oh!" she whispered softly, "she has read my heart, and we are playing at cross purposes! What a queer rivalry," the girl actually laughed; "a rivalry of renunciation. Does she yet know how he loves her, I wonder?" Then, her face growing graver, "she won't be long in making that discovery now."
She took up Clarence Vaughan's letter, almost dreading to break the seal.
My Brave Little Sister:
You perceive, I have commenced my tyranny. And instead of being able to grant favors to my new sister, I am reduced to the necessity of begging them at her hands. In a word, I want to come to Bellair. Not to be a meddlesome adviser; I am too firmly a convert to your method of procedure for that. Besides, I should have to declare war upon Miss Keith if I presumed thus far. But I do desire to further your plans, and to this end would make a suggestion that has occurred to me since hearing of your marvelous detective work.
Believe me, I cannot express the admiration I feel for your daring and tact. I have no longer the faintest scruple as to trusting this issue, so important to all of us, in your hands. And I am more than proud of such a sister.