"Oh, what do you know about it?" she exclaimed, with most unnecessary vehemence, I thought. "He wants the child and--and--well, you can see why he wants her, can't you? He is making the most desperate efforts to recover her. Max says the newspapers are full of the--the scandal. They are depicting me as a brainless, law-defying American without sense of love, honour or respect. I don't mind that, however. It is to be expected. They all describe the Count as a long-suffering, honourable, dreadfully maltreated person, and are doing what they can to help him in the prosecution of the search. My mother, who is in Paris, is being shadowed; my two big brothers are being watched; my lawyers in Vienna are being trailed everywhere--oh, it is really a most dreadful thing. But--but I will not give her up! She is mine. He doesn't love her. He doesn't love me. He doesn't love anything in the world but himself and his cigarettes. I know, for I've paid for his cigarettes for nearly three years. He has actually ridiculed me in court circles, he has defamed me, snubbed me, humiliated me, cursed me. You cannot imagine what it has been like. Once he struck me in--" "Struck you!" I cried. "--in the presence of his sister and her husband. But I must not distress you with sordid details. Suffice it to say, I turned at last like the proverbial worm. I applied for a divorce ten months ago. It was granted, provisionally as I say. He is a degenerate. He was unfaithful to me in every sense of the word. But in spite of all that, the court in granting me the separation, took occasion to placate national honour by giving him the child during the year, pending the final disposition of the case. Of course, everything depends on father's attitude in respect to the money. You see what I mean? A month ago I heard from friends in Vienna that he was shamefully neglecting our--my baby, so I took this awful, this perfectly bizarre way of getting her out of his hands. Possession is nine points in the law, you see. I--' "Alas!" interrupted I, shaking my head. "There is more than one way to look at the law. I'm afraid you have got yourself into a serious--er--pickle."' "I don't care," she said defiantly. "It is the law's fault for not prohibiting such marriages as ours. Oh, I know I must seem awfully foolish and idiotic to you, but--but it's too late now to back out, isn't it?" I did not mean to say it, but I did--and I said it with some conviction: "It is! You _must_ be protected." "Thank you, thank you!" she cried, clasping and unclasping her little hands. I found myself wondering if the brute had dared to strike her on that soft, pink cheek! Suddenly a horrible thought struck me with stunning force. "Don't tell me that your--your husband is the man who owned this castle up to a week ago," I cried. "Count James Hohendahl?"