"Yes, indeed, my dear Miss Lester, and I should be proud, and grateful for the chance to serve such a sweet, kind mistress!" cried Sophie earnestly.
"Thank you, and please consider yourself engaged, if the improbable happens!" laughed Liane, in girlish mockery, as she hurried out, meeting in the hall a dark-browed stranger, from whom she started back in dismay as he passed scowlingly to his room.
It was no wonder Liane recoiled in fear and dislike from Carlos Cisneros, the new boarder.
The sight of his somber, scowling face, with its dark beard, recalled to her that night upon the beach when Devereaux had saved her from a ruffian's insults.
For it was the selfsame face that had scowled upon her in the moonlight that night. It had terrified her too much ever to be forgotten.
He had evidently recognized her, too, from his start of surprise, and the angry bow with which he passed her by.
Trembling with the surprise of the unpleasant rencounter, Liane hastened to seclude herself within her own rooms.
Granny Jenks had just entered, and she was still in the vilest of humors, glaring murderously at Liane, without uttering a word, and giving vent to her temper by banging and slamming everything within her reach.
Liane, gentle, sorrowful, patient, her young heart full of the happenings of the day, and tremulous hopes for the morrow, moved softly about, laying the cloth for tea on the small table, and helping as much as the snapping, snarling old woman would permit.
The sight of her humility and patience ought to have melted the hardest heart, but Granny Jenks was implacable. She only saw in the lovely creature a rival to Roma, and an impediment that must be swept from her path.
Most exciting had been the interview that day between granny and her real granddaughter, and they had mutually agreed that Liane's continued life was a menace not to be borne longer. The beautiful, injured girl must die to insure Roma's continuance in her position.
When Roma left the house a devilish plot had been laid, whose barest details almost had been worked out, and the beautiful schemer's heart throbbed with triumph as she swept out to her carriage.
She had not noticed, on entering the house, a dark, scowling face at the parlor window, neither did she guess that, while she was with granny, the new boarder went out and slipped into the carriage, unobserved by the driver, calmly remaining there and awaiting her return.