"You are a smarter and wickeder woman than I gave you credit for," Ivy resumes, curiously. "So, then, the tale you told Leslie Noble about Vera's dissipated father was altogether false."
"Yes," her mother mutters, mechanically.
But presently she starts up like one in a panic.
"Ivy, we must go away from here," she exclaims, in a strange and hurried voice. "I am afraid to stay."
"Afraid of what?" Ivy queries, impatiently.
"Of Lawrence Campbell's vengeance," the woman answers, fearfully. "It is a fearful wrong I have done him, and he will strike me back. We must fly—fly from his wrath!"
[CHAPTER VIII.]
The unconscious man who has been so heartlessly thrust forth in the bleak, inclement night, lies still upon the wet and flinty pavement, his ghastly face upturned to the uncertain flicker of the street lamps, his eyes closed, his lips half parted as if he were, indeed, dead. No one is passing, no one notes that the form of an apparently dead man has been hustled out of the inhospitable gates of the stately Cleveland Mansion. None care to be abroad this wet and windy night. The chilly rain beats down into the still, white face, and at last revives him. He drags himself wearily up to his feet, and clinging to the iron spokes of the ornamental lawn fence, stares up at the dark, gloomy-looking building which now, with closed and darkened windows, appears dreary as a tomb. He shudders, and his eyes flash luridly in the darkness.