It began to dawn upon Fessenden that the girl was unusually clever, the more so, he thought, that she was consciously concealing her cleverness by a cloak of demure innocence, and careful unostentation. Never did she put herself forward; never did she show undue interest in Schuyler, personally.

Fessenden reasoned that the game being now in her own hands, she could afford to stand back and await developments.

Then came the next thought: how came the game so fortuitously into her own hands? Was it, even indirectly, due to her own instigation?

“Pshaw!” he thought to himself. “I’m growing absurdly suspicious. I won’t believe wrong of that girl until I have some scrap of a hint to base it on.”

And yet he knew in his own heart if Dorothy Burt had wanted to connive in the slightest degree in the removal of her rival, she was quite capable of doing so, notwithstanding her very evident effect of pretty helplessness.